Traceable Interview Experience for SDE-1 (On-campus)

Traceable has started to expand its India team (Bangalore office) and recently started to hire freshers via campus placements and ever since this happened, I have been frequently asked to share my interview experience. So in this blog, I would be sharing the same. To know more about the company, refer to this.

Coding Round :

The coding round comprised of 2–3 coding questions and some MCQs. The coding questions were of moderate complexity and could be solved by anyone having sufficient practice of standard algorithms. Generally, one question is kept a bit tough which helps to deviate the final test scores (For example I got a question that could be solved using a version of segment trees). MCQs will be of all levels from simple to complex but their weightage is less as compared to the coding questions. MCQs are from topics such as operating systems, databases, networking, debugging, object-oriented programming, etc.

After this round, around 10–15 students were shortlisted for the further rounds.

Technical Round 1 :

This round comprised of 2–3 CP questions which were comparatively less difficult than the ones asked in the coding test. These were standard coding problems that are readily available on platforms such as HackerEarth and GeeksForGeeks. Apart from this, there was a general discussion/questions on computer fundamental topics such as OS/compilers/DB/networking, etc.

Students shortlisted for further rounds were informed via mails.

Technical Round 2 :

This round was more about things like databases, OOP, and system designing. I was asked about some OOP concepts which I also had to code up and run! For example, the interviewer could give some problems and ask you to solve them using an object-oriented paradigm, and then you need to run this code too. So I would suggest being familiar with the syntax of one language so that you can write a running code in the live interview.

Students shortlisted for further rounds were informed via mails.

Technical Round 3 :

Might be there for some students (I didn’t have it). It would also test on similar patterns but in a more detailed manner.

HR/Fitment Round :

Advancing to this round means that you are almost selected. In this round, we were told about general company policies and the working culture. We were told about various areas that they were working on and how we could be assigned to any of the one team to solve a particular problem. Here in this round, the focus would be more on overall fitment like startup mindset, ownership, self-driven attitude, curiosity to learn and explore new things. Apart from this one should be good in articulation as in Traceable we interact with different teams and this as a skill is tested too in this round.

Suggestions (for those aspiring to join Traceable) :

The hiring process is pretty good and tests many other aspects and not just coding ability. Coding questions would be moderately difficult and test the ability to write clean and maintainable code (don’t expect hard DIV 1 problems here). Other topics are tested well and having some idea on basic concepts would help you get past these questions. A few suggestions on how to stand apart from fellow competitors would be to follow the below practices.

• Coding questions are of moderate difficulty so practice well. There are a bunch of programming platforms available and one can practice standard algorithms from there easily.
• Be well versed with fundamentals of computer science like operating systems, databases, networking, etc. These are tested in MCQs as well as in further technical rounds. Often these MCQs are deciding factors whether you proceed to the next round or not so give due importance to them.
• While writing live code, focus on converting solutions into clean code and carefully examining edge cases. One could also test the code after writing and if some problem is found, can debug that too. It would be very embarrassing and would create a negative impact if the interviewer enters a test case for which your code doesn’t work.
• Practice some mock interviews to get a hang of the whole process and prevent any last minute nerves.