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Intern Story #9: Radib’s Software Engineering Internship @ Samsung Research India
Radib is a Computer Science and Engineering graduate from Jadavpur University of 2020 batch. He did his summer internship in Samsung Research Bangalore and secured a PPO as well. Unfortunately, they had to postpone their offer due to the COVID-19 situation. Meanwhile, he got a full-time offer from Synopsys and joined there as R&D-I.
To be honest, as I belong to the West Bengal state board, our academic curriculum in school does not cover the basics of Computer or Computer Science at all. I had no interest in CS and in high school, I aspired to be a doctor. I chose biology for my 10+2, but unfortunately, I could not find anyone to guide me. I did everything on my own and I was aimless at that time. Luckily I got some good cracking results in WBJEE which was surprising for me as I was neither focused nor prepared for JEE. However, the exam day went well and by God’s grace, my rank was good enough to get JU CS.
I didn’t even know that there was something like Computer Science and Engineering. I only knew about Electrical Engineering and wanted to put that as my first choice, but all the seniors who were in this field told me to go for CS as that’s the most sought-after stream. I believed them and finally chose JU CS.
Then it all began. I struggled one year to understand basic programming. Once I got the grip, it started accelerating.
I have appeared only for three major interviews so far and have managed to sail through all of them.
My first interview was the internship interview for Samsung in 2018. At that time, my coding skills were not that great. I didn’t know graph in details. I was asked about trees in the interview. In the next round, I was asked a puzzle that I didn’t know beforehand and cracked there.
So though I was under-prepared, my luck helped me to get through and I secured an internship offer, thanks to that puzzle round. But then I started coding seriously and prepared myself throughout my third year. Then came my PPO interview which has been my best experience so far. It was so smooth that I didn’t feel like I was being interviewed at all. I discussed my projects, DS problems, algorithms, OOP concepts, and many other things. It was a great interview and my interviewer treated me very well. He has helped me whenever I moved in the wrong direction and led me every time while expecting me to give the right input along with him. It was a major learning experience and interviews should be like that. An interview is not only about throwing some hard Leetcode problem, rather walking along with the interviewee and judging his/her skills.
My internship at Samsung was very special as it was my first entry to the corporate world. There’s a huge difference in industry and academics. In academics, you work in very small cases, which are not enough to judge how effective your solution is. But in industry, you need to tackle very large cases, and there comes the actual test. Though I was assigned to the Network R&D team, I was interested in Samsung’s other top areas like Bixby, Samsung Pay, IoT division, etc. When it started I was trained for a few basics of their work and then assigned a project based on their requirement.
The project was not a very large or challenging one as within two months an intern can’t contribute much as he/she has to prepare for the Samsung Advance test which is a kind of gateway to the pre-placement offer. So parallelly, I contributed to the project along with my team & prepared for the Samsung Advance Test(3-hour coding exam). Eventually, I was able to crack the advance test, then the interview followed and also the project went well.
Apart from, this experience, I must mention that my first corporate experience has been unparalleled. Foosball, unlimited CCD coffees, amazing food, afternoon carom, having new friends who don’t speak your language, beautiful office premises, the amazing Bangalore weather, made my 2 months there beautiful and exceptional. I know these are probably not major things, but it was special for me as neither I was used to these nor had I ever thought of them. It was a sheer result of hard work.
I would recommend everyone to have a strong grip over data structure and algorithm. Problem-solving skill is essential to get an internship in product-based companies. Apart from coding, it’s good to have research projects, publications, open-source contributions. For off-campus placements, a good coding profile will give you an edge. In interviews be confident and don’t think that as an interview, rather think as a nice chat or discussion, speak from your heart and don’t go for any extravaganza.
Some best coding platforms would be:
Interview prep: Leetcode, GeeksforGeeks
Competitive Programing(CP): CodeChef, Codeforces
Some open-source platforms to contribute: GSOC, Outreachy, MLH
Mock interview platform: Pramp
Also, I would recommend CRIO as I took part in the Crio launch program as I feel it’s a great platform to give you industry experiences. They organize various programs some of which are paid also. Have a look at their programs to find what suits you the best.
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