Black Rock

Role: Associate (SSE)

College: Tier-2 college

Interview Date: October 2024

Interview Type: Full-Time

Result: Rejected

Difficulty: Medium

Rounds: 2 Technical Rounds

Topics Asked: DSA (Binary Search, Rotated Sorted Array), OOPs (Objects and memory allocation in Java, String/StringBuilder/StringBuffer differences, Java memory management), Advanced Threading (Concurrency, Multithreading, Thread safety, Optimizing concurrent processes), Finance and Banking concepts, Projects, Work experience

Experience:

The candidate, with 3.5 years of experience as an SDE-2 at a banking company, applied directly through BlackRock's careers page and received an invite shortly after.

Round 1: Technical Round (DSA and Problem Solving)

Duration: 1 hour.

• Began with a brief introduction and discussions around projects and work experience.
• DSA Problem: "Find an element in a rotated (pivoted) sorted array" – an extension of binary search. Discussed logic, edge cases, and optimizations.
• OOPs-related questions:
  • Objects and memory allocation in Java.
  • Differences between Strings, StringBuilder, and StringBuffer.
  • General concepts of Java memory management.

Round 2: Technical Round

Duration: 1 hour. This round was more focused on experience and projects.

• Deep dive into advanced threading concepts in Java, including concurrency and multithreading.
• Practical scenarios involving thread safety and optimizing concurrent processes.
• Since the interviewer had a strong background in Chartered Accountancy (CA) and Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA), questions related to finance and banking were asked. The candidate noted their limited understanding in this domain was a drawback.

Verdict: Rejected.