THOUGHTWORKS

Technical and HR Questions in ThoughtWorks:

Loveneesh Singh

Coding Round 1: Remove the character which are in string 2 from string 1.
Rules : You have to write a running program to give the desired output in 20 min no constraints
on the language one can use any language.
In this round they will only see a running code which gives the desired output.
Input:
Programming parix
aeiou
Output:
Prgrmmng prx

Coding Round 2 : There is an interview to be held schedule the time table without any overlap.
The interviewee can take interview from 9am to 6pm every interview last for 2 hours and there is
a break from 2pm to 3pm . An Interview can only happen where there is a attendee and a
Interviewer and a empty room at the same time . Do it with the concept of OOPS.
Rule: You have to write a running program in 90 min which gives the desired output using the
concept of OOPS for the first 45 min you will code alone and for the next 45 min thoughtworks
accessor will join you and will help you(give hints) and will also ask question about your code .

Input:
Attendees Interviewers Room
1 A R1
2 B R2
3 C
4
5
Output:
Attendees Interviewers Room TimeSlot
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1 A R1 9-11
2 A R1 11-1
3 A R1 3-5
4 B R2 9-11
5 B R2 11-1

[ Also mention whether all attendees can be interviewed or not ]

Technical Round 1:
1. Tell me something about yourself which is not in your CV ?
2. Tell me about the best project you have worked on ?
3. Describe your project .
4. Draw the layout of the databases you have made while doing the project.
5. Make an ER Diagram with all the entity and the attributes which were in your project.
6. Write the Relationship between the attributes .
7. Forget about the project your have done make the same project with fresh table without
any data redundancy.
8. Write SQL queries for retrieving data from your tables.
9. Reverse a Singly Link List write a pseudocode .
10. Advantage of Link list over Array.
11. You are in the Universe alone There is a room there is a bulb in the room and there is a
switch , Glow the bulb . By concept of OOPS.
12. What is dynamic method dispatch .
13. What is Inheritance .
14. What is methodOverding and methodOverloding.
15. The is a class car and honda extend car .
Car c = new Honda
Car c = new Car
Honda h = new Car
Which one is valid and why..??
16. Explain multiple inheritance in java .
17. Give a real life example of class , method , interface .
18. What is polymorphism , Encapsulation and data abstraction give a real life example.
*Counter Question for every Explanation that you give
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Technical Round 2:
1. Tell me about the topics which were not covered in the last round .
2. Your college is doing an expense, you have to form a database to keep record of all the
expense . Make tables to keep a record of all the expense with all the important data .
3. Make an ER diagram for the relation and show the cardinality .
4. Then they keep on changing the constraints on the database and ask you to change the
database accordingly .
5. There is a program running on Pentium 4 processor and same program runs on i7
processor on which system it will have more Time Complexity.
6. How can you determine the time Complexity of a program.
7. What type of data structure you will prefer to store the data of 100 employee . And Why
?
8. If we add element at last of an array it will be done faster than that of an link list so how
it is beneficial as it is taking more time than an array.
9. Complexity of insertion in link list and an array.
10. How to determine which data structure is required for a particular task as we can not
change the database in runtime.
11. What is hashing ?
12. Write a hash function
13. How the data is saved in hashing and how the collision is encountered..
14. Which one is better a collision free or a collision dependent hash.
15. What is a bucket .
16. If there are 5 lakh entries one will end up in creating 5lakh buckets and the space
complexity will increase so how collision free is better ?
17. Tell me about a problem in coding which you solved and what was your approach .
18. What was the time complexity of your program and how you can improve your program .
19. Some Question form other projects which you have done.
*Counter Question for every Explanation that you give . Even if you give a right answer they
will mislead you by giving you different examples do not get misleaded.

HR Round :
1. Introduce Yourself .
2. Tell me about your hobbies in details . What you like to do .
3. Do you read newspaper ? How you keep yourself Updated .
4. Tell me about the Three Pillars of ThoughtWorks.
5. What are the projects we are working on for the Pillar 3.
6. Why do you think technology is the only solution to every problem.
7. Why education is important for everyone ?
8. Have to done anything for the society . If not why.?
9. Tell me about any recent sensitive topic which you want to talk about .
10. Give a solution to fight this issue by using technology .
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11. They keep on discouraging and asking more question on the topic and will try to change
your statement .
12. If your statement is morally correct stick to the statement .
13. I gave 3 statements like :
- Education is important for all
- we can fight corruption by the use of technology and conducting seminars
- One doesn’t have to go to school to obtain education even madrasa can also educate them
14. They were counter questioning and trying to make me change my statement .

Palash Das

Short Coding :
(Same as Loveneesh)
But there was enough time after finishing it so the hall guard changed the problem slightly to test
whether I did it myself or not.
Annexure I: Remove the characters from string 1 which are not in string 2
Test cases : [same as Loveneesh]

::Others Got::

Given a set of numbers, your task is to find the count of them and print it in ascending order of
the numbers.

Sample Input : (Input format was decided by the hall guard, either as all numbers in single line
separated by space or as each number in one line and terminated by a blank line)
1 2 2 1 6 4 5 6 3 4 5 5 6

Sample Output: (each line containing “number - count” )

1-2
2-2
3-1
4-2
5-3
6 - 2

Long Coding :
(Problem statement same as Loveneesh)
Extra 1 :
Print all possible solutions. Make it flexible so that it works with other user given time values (
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starting, ending, recess hours… etc)
Extra 2:
Schedule in such a way that the no of interviewes are almost equally distributed to all
interviewers and also homogeneously spread over the time line so that the Interviewers can take
little rest if possible.
(I used heap to implement this but my “pair coding partner from ThoughtWorks” told me there
are better ways)
[ He also mentioned that from next time this will be compulsory so that they will get other
candidates approach also. IMPORTANT FOR NOV]

Priorities :
1. Output must be correct for all test cases.
2. It must be object oriented obeying all the oops principle.
3. Only one naming convention should be used. (like CamelCase, Pascal,... etc)
4. The code must be highly readable. Even the local variables should have significant meaningful
names.

Technical Interview 1 :
1. Why do you prefer C++ over Java?
C++ has a better performance than Java. Justify it using reputed benchmarks.
Did you ever test it yourself. Do you have your own benchmarks to justify that C++ is
much better in terms of performance?
If you have nothing to support your answer, then why do you claim such things which are
not evident? Explain your views (I gave my own opinions and logical explanations).
Why do you think, “JIT”, is not a good concept?

2. Areas of application of C++ and Java? Explain Why.

Why do you think, C++, is not a pure OOP language. Justify that “friend” violates the
OOP concept. (They have represented “friend” in a mixture of OOP concepts.
3. How was your experience with SFML? How did you feel when the main developer
changed the entire structure of TGUI in latest version though your contributions were
there, in older versions?
Though Qt is not backward compatible, still you have switched to Qt from SFML+TGUI.
Why?
What do you mean by “write once compile everywhere” strategy?
(SFML, TGUI and Qt are from my CV, but similar questions can be asked based on
anyone else’s cv)
4. What do you mean by native app? Do you think your definition of “it” is correct? If yes,
then why?
What is hybrid app?
What is Intel XDK? Why do you think, it is comfortable to work with? (related to my cv)
What is phonegap? Why do you think whatsapp uses phonegap?
Why do you think hybrid or native apps are good for cross platform development?

5. What qualities do you see in a programming language? (I was instructed to answer short
and to the point and no diplomatic answer)
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Why do you think less “lines of code” is good?
Why do you think, software library developers’ code is less buggy than yours? In
ThoughtWorks, why should we hire you as a software developer?

6. What is open source? How people and corporates get benefited from it?
Why do you think “uglification” is bad and unethical?
If I(the interviewer) have a js library of size 22MB and its uglified version is of size
2MB. Which one should I use in a web page and why?
You(me) are recommending us(TW) to maintain two versions of that js library. Why
should we(TW) do so? Do you think, it is a good idea?

7. What is object oriented programming? What are abstraction and inheritance. Difference
between abstraction and polymorphism.
Do you think the mechanism for Hunter.kill() will be same for all animals? How can a
hunter, kill a cat and a T-rex in same way?
How can you specialize Hunter.kill() for T-Rex?
Why should atmosphere invoke Animal.respirat() as it is a property of Animal . Who is
“doer”? Who is GOD in this case?
If respiration mechanism varies in different eco system like Air, Water then how you
would implement that in java?
8. What is DBMS? Give an example.
What is RDBMS? What are the differences between them?
What is table? What is row?
Define primary key, composite key.
Who can set the primary key other than DBA?
Why have you used sqlite, whenever a database is needed?
Why not MS SQL SERVER as FILE?
What is nosql? state xml vs json.
9. What subjects were there, in your syllabus.Name them. Which books have you read yet?
Why are you not able to give proper definition of technical terms but you have clear idea
about those and you can explain them with your own example?
Do you believe that studying from internet is beneficiary? Explain.
Which sites you visit for technical knowledge? Do you really think “stackoverflow” is a
good idea?

Technical Interview 2 :
1. Describe your final year academic project. Why you have chosen c++ for it. Why not
php/node.js/nginx?
Do you think if it is deployed in android then it will be scalable?
2. Which game you play mostly? [My Answer : CS 1.6 ]
Guess what type of data structures are used in CS 1.6?
Suppose a bot has to reach (x,y) coordinate from (0,0), there are enemies, obstacles and
pits in arena. Which data structure should be used to find the minimum path online. [My
answer : Dijkstra, A-Star but wrong as those are offline SSSP algo, they gave hint “tree”
but I could not answer, Right Answer : Minimax tree]
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3. Describe Red Black tree.
4. Implement stack using queue.
5. Write the recursive definition of factorial. Illustrate 5!. Optimise it.
How the complexities are determined for DP based algorithm?

6. Extra Questions : (As my interview was not good enough they asked me a domain from
which they will ask this question, I told them pure algorithm like the ones in competitive
coding)
You have a pile of 3,000 bananas. You wish to transport them to a place 1,000 miles
away on the back of a camel; however, the camel can only carry a maximum of 1,000
bananas, and will eat one banana every mile it travels (and will not go anywhere if it does
not have any bananas). However, you can load and unload as many bananas as you want
anywhere. What is the most bananas you can bring over to your destination?
(As I was not able to solve it, they asked me the approach)

HR Interview :
1. ( In my introduction, I told them that Mark Zuckerberg is my idol)
Why is Mr. Zuckerberg, your idol? ( I have described fb and all and finally free basics)
Do you think free basics or internet.org is a good idea? Explain.
How Indian’s are getting privileged or deprived by it?
What do you think about government’s role in it?
Is it really free?
(They have explained and proved that free basics was a cheap business plan and called it
“cheating” instead of “charitable drive” )
So after knowing all these things, is Mr. Zuckerberg still your idol?

2. Why don’t you read newspaper or watch news channel?

What is your source of news?
What websites you follow for news?
Do you really think scoopwhoop or ndtv is a good idea?
Why do you believe in news shared in social media?
3. According to you media is biased.
As they are also doing business then why they should not distort news for money?
How can you extract correct and valid news, when all the news channels are biased?
How will you choose or vote for a candidate in a local election when no news is available
about them on internet or social media?
4. Say your parents are not comfortable with internet based news and according to you,
media is influenced by various bodies like Govt., Political party, Business Tycoon ...etc.
Now how can they fetch appropriate news, by sitting at home and without taking help
from others?
5. Give examples of biased and modified news.
What do you think about “Friday Protests”?
Does Kashmir want freedom or whether it wants to get merged with Pakistan?
Is Brexit good or bad? Justify.
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What are your views on Maoist activities?
Do you think, the Govt should give them (Kashmir / Maoists / Sikkim-Gorkha,... etc) the
freedom? What can be the potential risks?
What is your suggestion for govt to solve those integrity issues?
What can be the possible reasons that Govt is not doing anything seriously to solve
those?
(They were always trying to prove me wrong, and asking from each and every keyword I
referred to, for answering other questions in a FIFO manner)

Apti Round : difficulty medium (Logical Reasoning, Quant, Verbal)

( by Wonderland P T, California)

Flow Chart round : difficulty hard ( Based on basics of iterative and selective control structure)
(by ThoughtWorks itself)