KLA

Role: Software Engineer (SDE-2)

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: November 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium to Hard

Rounds: 5 rounds

Topics Asked: Data Structures (Heaps, Graphs, Disjoint Set Union, Arrays), Algorithms (Greedy, Recursion, Backtracking, Bit Manipulation, Number Theory, Geometry, Connected Components), System Design (Microservices with Kafka, Restaurant Billing System, Excel Sheet Design), OOP (SOLID principles), Resume Discussion, Behavioral

Experience:

This comprehensive interview process for a Software Engineer (SDE-2) position at KLA involved multiple rounds, with some managerial and HR rounds conducted onsite in Chennai.

Round 1 (Online Coding Assessment): Conducted on HackerRank, this assessment comprised three questions of varying difficulty.

• Easy: Focused on basic implementation problems.
• Medium: Required knowledge of heaps and a greedy approach.
• Hard: Centered on graphs, specifically using Disjoint Set Union (DSU).

Another candidate's experience for SDE-2 mentioned two coding questions: one based on number theory and another involving bit manipulation and arrays, requiring fully functional code and complexity analysis.

Round 2 (Technical Interview - Code Pair): This round was also on HackerRank (CodePair) and involved two coding problems with detailed problem statements. Candidates were required to write fully functional code and provide time and space complexity analysis.

• Question 1: Based on number theory.
• Question 2: Involved bit manipulation and arrays.

Another experience mentioned questions like: "Given an array and k operations, in each operation replace a number with half of it. After k operations, return the sum of array that is minimum." and "The keyboard has only 3 keys (K, L, A) and performs 3 operations (Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V). Return the maximum number of KLA words that can be formed for a given N."

Round 3 (Pseudo-code Round): Held on HackerRank, candidates were asked to write pseudo-code for three problems.

• Question 1: A recursion and backtracking problem.
• Question 2: A challenging geometry problem.
• Question 3: A graph problem involving connected components.

Another experience included: "Given an array with min length of 8, choose 2 groups of 2 numbers such that in each group, the two numbers must not be adjacent. Multiply the numbers in both groups and subtract one from the other. Maximize this result." and "Given a 2D sorted array, sorted in rows and sorted in columns, return a 1D array that is sorted."

Round 4 (Managerial Round - Onsite in Chennai): This round focused on discussing the candidate's resume, work experience, tech stack, and career goals. A technical design question was posed: "Design a microservices system integrating Kafka," followed by a question to "Explain Kafka's internal working."

For an SDE-2 role, a Low-Level Design (LLD) round was also mentioned, covering "Difference between CTYPE map and STL map," "Hashing concepts and how to avoid collisions," "Design restaurant billing system," "Design Excel sheet," and questions on SOLID principles.

Round 5 (HR Interview - Onsite in Chennai): This round consisted of typical HR questions related to personal background, strengths, and career aspirations. For SDE-2, basic HR questions were asked, and salary expectations were not directly discussed, with KLA offering competitive compensation.