Ciena

Role: Software Engineer

College: Not Specified

Interview Date: September 1, 2022

Interview Type: Off-Campus/Full-Time

Result: Selected

Difficulty: Medium to Hard

Rounds: 4 rounds

Topics Asked: Arrays, Strings, Trees, Graphs, Dynamic Programming, Pointers, Linked Lists, Structures, Classes, Packet Switching, C/C++

Experience:

The candidate applied for a Software Engineer profile through Naukri.com. There were 4 elimination rounds.

Coding Round: This was an online coding round with 6 questions to be solved in 1 hour. The questions were of medium to hard difficulty and covered Array variations (2 problems, Medium), String (1 problem, Medium), Tree (1 problem, Medium/Hard), Graph (1 problem, Hard), and Dynamic Programming (1 problem, Hard). The candidate managed to solve 5 out of 6 problems.

1st Technical Round: This round started with an introduction, followed by questions about the candidate's resume projects and internship experience. The technical part focused on pointers, including advanced concepts and scenario-based problems. Two coding questions were asked: "Flipping of bits" and "Check whether a given number is a palindrome or not." The candidate solved both.

2nd Technical Round: The interviewer was polite and asked the candidate to choose a comfortable topic between pointers and strings. Since the first round focused on pointers, the candidate chose strings. Questions included finding character frequency in a string with pseudocode and its variations. Further topics covered structures and classes, coding for linked list creation, modifications for a doubly linked list, and real-life examples.

HR Round: This round was conducted by a senior member with over 17 years of experience. It started with introductions, followed by scenario-based questions and career-related questions, including "Why do you want to join Ciena?" A real-world problem related to packet switching for fiber optics and its optimization was also discussed. The round concluded with the candidate asking questions about Ciena. The candidate received a confirmation email after 4 days.