Blackrock

The process consisted of an Online Assessment, Technical Interview 1, and a Techno-HR round. The OA had seven timed sections covering Basic and Advanced Coding, Basic and Advanced Design Patterns, DBMS, Aptitude, AI and Reasoning. Coding questions varied across candidates and included DSA, OOP and debugging-based problems. DBMS covered joins, keys, SQL queries, ACID and general database concepts, while Design Patterns included Gang of Four patterns. Technical Round 1 started with an introduction and questions based on my background, followed by a DSA problem involving strings and brackets, which I first approached recursively and then optimized using a stack. This was followed by detailed Java questions on Strings, mutability/immutability, StringBuilder vs StringBuffer and internal String storage. SQL/DBMS questions included WHERE vs HAVING, Primary Key vs UNIQUE, and the purpose of Primary Keys. The interviewer also asked about my projects and internship experience, mainly focusing on my technology choices, approach, learning and overall contribution, along with some behavioural questions. The Techno-HR round was a mix of project, technical and behavioural discussion. I was asked to explain my favourite project, the motivation behind it, challenges faced, bugs/debugging and the overall technical approach. This led to questions on concepts and technologies used in the project, including CI/CD and Redis, as well as how I make technical decisions and approach problem-solving. Questions were also asked about my internship experience, handling feedback, managing deadlines, optimization and a use of AI that I was proud of. The final part focused on behavioural and HR questions, including personal core values, learning during college, handling failure and making a comeback, future plans and expectations from the internship. The process was highly variable across candidates, with different candidates receiving different combinations of DSA, technical-stack and HR questions. Overall, preparation of projects and resume, Java/DSA, SQL/DBMS, technical fundamentals and behavioural examples was important.