hacker earth common hiring questions

Introduction：

1、(Part 1) Essential Questions To Ask When Recruiting Developers In 2021

2、Different types of questions

(Part 1) Essential Questions To Ask When Recruiting Developers In 2021 ♂

　　The minute a developer position opens up, recruiters feel a familiar twinge of fear run down their spines. They recall their previous interview experiences, and how there seems to be a blog post a month that goes viral about bad developer interviews.

　　While hiring managers, especially the picky ones, would attribute this to a shortage of talented developers, what if the time has come to rethink your interview process? What if recruiters and hiring managers put too much stock into bringing out the technical aspects of each candidate and don’t put enough emphasis on their soft skills?

　　A report by Robert Half shows that 86% of technology leaders say it’s challenging to find IT talent. Interviewing developers should be a rewarding experience, not a challenging one. If you don’t get caught up in asking specific questions and instead design a simple conversation to gauge a candidate’s way of thinking, it throws up a lot of good insight and makes it fun too.

　　Asking the right technical interview questions when recruiting developers is important but so is clear communication, good work ethic, and alignment with your organization’s goals.

　　Let us first see what kind of technical interview questions are well-suited to revealing the coding skills and knowledge of any developer, and then tackle the behavioral aspects of the candidate that sets them apart from the rest.

　　Here are some technical interview questions that you should ask potential software engineers when interviewing.

　　Minimum Stack – Design a stack that provides 4 functions – push(item), pop, peek, and minimum, all in constant order time complexity. Then move on to coding the actual solution.

　　Kth Largest Element in an array – This is a standard problem with multiple solutions of best time complexity orders where N log(K) is a common one and O(N) + K log(N) is a lesser-known order. Both solutions are acceptable, not directly comparable to each other, and better than N log(N), which is sorting an array and fetching the Kth element.

　　Top View of a Binary Tree – Given a root node of the binary tree, return the set of all elements that will get wet if it rains on the tree. Nodes having any nodes directly above them will not get wet.

　　Internal implementation of a hashtable like a map/dictionary – A candidate needs to specify how key-value pairs are stored, hashing is used and collisions are handled. A good developer not only knows how to use this concept but also how it works. If the developer also knows how the data structure scales when the number of records increases in the hashtable, that is a bonus.

　　Algorithms demonstrate a candidate’s ability to break down a complex problem into steps. Reasoning and pattern recognition capabilities are some more factors to look for when assessing a candidate. A good candidate can code his thought process of the algorithm finalized during the discussion.

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　　What is LLD? In your own words, specify the different aspects covered in LLD.

　　Design a movie ticket booking application like BookMyShow. Ensure that your database schema is tailored for a theatre with multiple screens and takes care of booking, seat availability, seat arrangement, and seat locking. Your solution does not have to extend to the payment option.

　　Design a basic social media application. Design database schema and APIs for a platform like Twitter with features for following a user, tweeting a post, seeing your tweet, and seeing a user’s tweet.

　　Such questions do not have a right or wrong answer. They primarily serve to reveal a developer’s thought process and the way they approach a problem.

　　Recommended read: Hardest Tech Roles to Fill (+ solutions!)

　　What do you understand by HLD? Can you specify the difference between LLD and HLD?

　　Design a social media application. In addition to designing a platform like Twitter with features for following a user, tweeting a post, seeing your tweet, and seeing a user’s tweet, design a timeline. After designing a timeline where you can see your followers’ tweets, scale it for a larger audience. If you still have time, try to scale it for a celebrity use case.

　　Design for a train ticket booking application like IRCTC. Incorporate auth, features to choose start and end stations, view available trains and available seats between two stations, save reservation of seats from start to end stations, and lock them till payment confirmation.

　　How will you design a basic relational database? The database should support tables, columns, basic field types like integer and text, foreign keys, and indexes. The way a developer approaches this question is important. A good developer designs a solution around storage and memory management.

　　Here’s a pro-tip for you. LLD questions can be answered by both beginners and experienced developers. Mostly, senior developers can be expected to answer HLD questions. Choose your interview questions set wisely, and ask questions relevant to your candidate’s experience.

　　Example: Create a table with separate columns for student name, subject, and marks scored. Return student names and ranks of each student. The rank of a student depends on the total of marks in all subjects.

　　Not all developers would have experience working with SQL but some knowledge about how data is stored/structured is useful. Developers should be familiar with simple concepts like joins, retrieval queries, and the basics of DBMS.

　　Instead of asking developer candidates to write code on a piece of paper (which is outdated, anyway), ask them to debug existing code. This is another way to assess their technical skills. Place surreptitious errors in the code and evaluate their attention to detail.

Different types of questions ♂

　　HackerEarth’s library comprises an exhaustive list of questions of the following types:

　　MCQs comprise a problem statement and multiple answer choices, one or more of which may be the right answer. These questions are evaluated automatically as the selected option is compared against an existing answer key.

　　Subjective questions allow you to ask candidates open-ended questions. These questions include short answers, definitions, scenario questions, and opinion questions.

　　Examples:

　　What are the advantages and disadvantages of using Selenium framework?

　　What are code snippets? Why are they used?

　　Programming questions allow you to test the algorithm knowledge, analytical thinking, and problem-solving ability of candidates. These questions provide the flexibility of using any computer language to the candidates.

　　Frontend questions aid in evaluating a candidate’s front end development skills. You can test whether candidates know how to structure, design, and add logic to web pages by using HTML, CSS, JavaScript.

　　Golf questions test the candidate's knowledge to write correct, simple, and efficient codes. Unlike, all the programming questions where scoring is based on the correct output, here the candidate is scored based on the code written as well as the output.

　　Approximate questions are particularly useful for domains of software development where there is no single correct answer, such as image processing or computer vision. The solutions to these problems find approximate solutions to optimization problems.

　　Example:

　　List 8 composite numbers less than 100. There are 74 composite numbers less than 100, therefore, candidates can list any combination of 8 composite numbers from the list of 74 composite numbers.

　　This type of question provides you the flexibility to ask any simple or complex problem such as a full-stack application, a PowerPoint presentation etc., to the candidates. The problem statement might ask the candidates to provide a sample business plan or to send you a .zip file of the code written for the problem.

　　SQL questions allow you to assess a candidate’s SQL skills and their knowledge of database management systems. Through these questions, you can also test a candidate's knowledge of the queries to retrieve relevant data.

　　ML problems provide you with a platform that enables you to assess the skills of candidates such as relational databases and big data platforms. These questions also assess the knowledge of building models based on predictive analysis.

　　Java project questions allow you to test a candidate’s hands-on programming skill as against testing only the algorithmic coding knowledge. You can also assess how familiar candidates are with the concepts of code structure, file hierarchy, various frameworks, and libraries within Java.

Related questions

HackerEarth's hiring challenges are designed to be original and tailored to meet the needs of companies conducting technical assessments. Here's a breakdown of their approach:

1. Custom Content Creation:
   HackerEarth offers companies the option to create custom challenges with unique problem statements, ensuring originality and alignment with specific role requirements. Their platform supports tailored assessments that reflect real-world scenarios relevant to the hiring company.

2. Curated Question Bank:
   They maintain a proprietary library of coding problems developed in-house or by expert contributors. While some questions may follow common algorithmic patterns (e.g., dynamic programming, graph traversal), the scenarios and problem formulations are often original to avoid duplication.

3. Anti-Plagiarism Measures:
   HackerEarth emphasizes integrity by using plagiarism detection tools to ensure solutions submitted by candidates are authentic. This indirectly incentivizes the creation of unique problems to minimize recycling of answers.

4. Company Flexibility:
   Companies can choose between using HackerEarth's pre-existing questions or commissioning custom challenges. This means originality can vary depending on the hiring organization's preferences.

5. Industry Reputation:
   As a reputable platform, HackerEarth likely prioritizes originality to maintain trust with clients. However, no platform can guarantee 100% uniqueness for all problems, especially given the finite nature of algorithmic concepts.

In summary, while challenges may include familiar problem types, HackerEarth strives to provide original content through customization and a well-maintained question bank. For absolute certainty, companies can opt for bespoke challenges tailored to their specific needs.