Media.net

Role: SDE

College: Not Specified (On-Campus Recruitment)

Interview Date: August 2023

Interview Type: On-Campus, Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Hard

Rounds: 4 rounds (Online Assessment + 3 DSA/Project Rounds)

Topics Asked: Data Structures (Binary Search, Dynamic Programming, Bitmasks, Graphs, 2D Matrix, Hash-Table, Linked List), Algorithms, CS Fundamentals (DBMS, OS, OOPS, CN).

Experience:

Media.net visited the candidate's campus in August 2023 for placement season, known for its rigorous interview process emphasizing Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA).

Round 1: Online Assessment (1.5 hours)

This round comprised 3 questions of medium to hard difficulty.

• Question 1: 'Red Zone' based on binary search.
• Question 2: 'Omega Primes' based on dynamic programming and bitmasks, similar to a medium LeetCode problem, required an iterative approach due to TLE/MLE with recursion.
• Question 3: 'Fractional Knapsack' based on bit manipulation and implementation, finding minimum operations to fill a knapsack with coins (weights are powers of 2).

The candidate completed one question fully and one partially. 11 students moved to the interview rounds.

Round 2: DSA Round 1

The interviewer directly asked a DSA question.

• Coding Question: Graph-based. "Given an undirected, unweighted, and connected graph(N, M) and K special nodes, one must find a pair of special nodes so that if connected the distance between node 1 and N changes as little as possible." The candidate developed a solution involving the BFS algorithm and coded it on Google Docs.
• CS Fundamentals: Questions on DBMS, OS, OOPS, and CN.

Round 3: DSA Round 2

After a brief introduction, a DSA question was given.

• Coding Question: "Involved a 2D matrix (N*M) and K rectangles that lie on it. The task was to fix an l*h rectangle on the matrix such that the overlapped area with the existing rectangles was minimized. Finally, return this (minimized) overlapped area."

Round 4: DSA/Project Round 3

This round started with an introduction, followed by a DSA question.

• Coding Question: LeetCode hard problem based on hash-table and linked list (similar to AllO'One question). The candidate struggled to find the most optimized approach.
• Projects: Explanation of one of the candidate's projects.

The candidate did not receive an offer but found it a valuable experience for articulating thought processes and optimizing solutions.