FORESIGHT(2023): Summer Internship at Graviton| Shivansh Shukla |
Brief Introduction
Hello everyone, I am Shivansh Shukla, a 3rd year undergraduate from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, enrolled in its B.Tech course. I will be interning at Graviton Research Capital in the summer of 2023.
How did you get into Graviton? What was the selection procedure?
I got into Graviton via the CDC Internship Program. Initially there was a test on HackerEarth, consisting of 2 coding problems to be solved in 75 minutes. First one was a hard shortest path problem involving Edge Space Reduction by constructing Pseudo nodes. Second problem was easy-medium based on number theory & sieve. I submitted both problems 32 minutes before the end of the test. They shortlisted 10–12 people who solved both problems.
How to prepare for them?
CP is the most important skill required to grab an internship through CDC in day 1–2 companies. The difficulty of problems in coding rounds is increasing year by year. Apart from regular contests on Codeforces, CodeChef & Atcoder, do participate in competitions like ICPC, CodeJam, Kickstart, HashCode, HackerCup, SnackDown, etc. Mentioning good ranks in these contests give a huge boost to one’s CV.
Make sure to upsolve at least one problem more than what you could solve during the contest otherwise you’re practically not making any significant progress despite the rating changes . Also, check out editorial & discuss with friends to get to know about alternate approaches for a problem.
Also, prepare for OOPS & have a thorough knowledge of C++ STL containers as many companies ask questions regarding them during interviews. Additionally for dual-degree students, CS fundamentals like OS, Networks, DBMS, etc also plays an important role during interviews.
What difficulties did you face while preparing for this Company/Profile? How did you overcome this problem?
As I was mainly targeting HFTs for which good CP ratings play a major role, the main difficulty for me was to improve my CP skills and increase my ratings on Codeforces and Codechef.
For that, I started participating in CF from my alt account [shuklaji1102] & made sure to upsolve & look at editorials as much as possible. I also started solving A2OJ div2D ladder & covered around 30 problems there. Meanwhile, I learnt Segment Tree from cp-algorithms.com and practised problems in the CF-Edu section. After this, I spent the complete month of May on DP covering Simple DP, DP on trees, DP with bitmasking, Digit DP — first watching the respective Kartik Arora’s playlist & then solving problems mentioned in various CF blogs. I also solved & highly recommend everyone to completely solve all problems of AtCoder Educational DP round — it covers almost all types of DP problems which you would be encountering at least till reaching purple in CF. After this extensive practice, DP & tree became my strongest topics and I was even able to solve 2200–2300 rated CF problems sometimes during the contests. Besides, I participated in all GOC-CDC series contests and it helped me a lot to understand the type and difficulty of questions asked in coding rounds of last year.
According to you, who should ideally apply for this job?
Anyone having deep interest in problem-solving, willing to learn how HFTs work and is ready to spend enough time on a fast paced competitive environment should apply for this company.
Any specific advice you want to give to the junta sitting for internships this year.
Don’t get demotivated if things are not going according to the way you thought. Be patient, have faith in God and keep working hard, eventually you’ll reach there! Try to be in constant touch with family members or friends who can motivate you through this journey.
Some points regarding Coding Rounds : Make sure you choose the language you want to code in at the beginning itself. Few platforms don’t allow copy-paste & your entire hard work may go waste. Also, try completing all problems as early as possible as many companies consider time of submission while shortlisting candidates. Do read the instructions very carefully and understand the policy of switching between various sections. If you can’t think of a complete solution or you’re not sure about your complete solution & running out of time, prefer submitting a brute force solution first with an aim to pass as many test cases as possible.
What are some of the major points you think would be valid to mention in your CV while targeting this profile?(any specific suggestions you would like to make?)
CV, as such, doesn’t play a crucial role for day 1–2 companies. For HFTs, it would be good if you mention ranks in various competitive programming competitions and also your ratings in platforms like Codeforces and Codechef. One of my interviewers explicitly asked me about my CP achievements towards the end of my interview. Projects and EAA do not matter much if you’re targeting HFTs.
