Sprinklr Internship Interview Experience

Introduction

IIIT-Allahabad is proud to announce that eight students from the batch of 2024 have been selected for a 2 month summer internship opportunity at Sprinklr. Geekhaven, the technical society of IIIT-Allahabad, interviewed some of these students and has compiled a blog post sharing their preparation strategies and how they were able to succeed in the online assessments and interviews. The blog post is a valuable resource for students who are interested in pursuing internships. It provides practical advice and insights that can help students improve their chances of success. Sprinklr visited the college with the following job description:

Job Profile: Summer Intern

Role: Product Engineer

Eligibility Criteria: (All branches 2024 batch)

Here are a few of the students who got into Sprinklr, in brief.

1. Mudit Agarwal: Mudit is a B.Tech student in Information Technology. He is a Specialist on Codeforces and the coordinator of the Web Development Wing at Geekhaven.
2. Raghav Agarwal: Raghav is a B.Tech student in Information Technology. He is the coordinator of the Competitive Coding Wing at Geekhaven and is a Candidate Master on Codeforces.
3. Sachin Raghuwanshi: Sachin, a B.Tech student in Electronics and Communication, is the coordinator of Codeplus, a program that 2nd and 3rd year students created to teach freshers competitive coding and DSA. He is also a Candidate Master on Codeforces, 5 star on Codechef and a Guardian on Leetcode.
4. Ansh Gupta: Ansh is pursuing B.Tech in Information Technology. He is the coordinator of the Competitive Wing at Geekhaven. He is also a Candidate Master on Codeforces and 6 star on Codechef.

Preparation

The first question that comes in everyone’s mind is how to prepare to get selected to the prestigious club of Sprinklrites. Here’s what they have to say.

All of them started their coding journey at the beginning of college. They participated in contests on Codechef and Codeforces. The best way to prepare is to solve as many problems possible. Competitive programming can help a lot in increasing your problem-solving skills. Participating in coding contests hosted by Google and Facebook can help you learn how to manage your time effectively.

Solving standard problems is a great way to prepare for coding interviews. While companies often ask new problems, most of their problem sets are made up of standard problems. Therefore, it is important to solve as many standard problems as possible. Standard problems can be found on websites like LeetCode and Interviewbit. There are many sheets of standard questions available for free on the internet. Solving these problems can help you become familiar with classic problems from greedy, dynamic programming, and graph theory.

In the last two months before your interview, focus primarily on data structures and algorithms (DSA). Practice all of the questions on InterviewBit. Start studying CS Core concepts like DBMS, Compilers, OS, Networks. Do not just understand the theory, solve some problems to make sure you have understood the concepts. Practice the puzzles and SQL questions on Interviewbit and GFG.

Hiring Process

The hiring process at Sprinklr has 4 rounds.

1. Coding Round
2. Technical Round (2 Rounds)
3. HR Round (Cultural Fitment Round)

Coding Round

In this round, there were 3 coding questions with varying difficulty levels and scores. The first two questions were of medium difficulty and worth 50 and 75 points, respectively. The third question was worth 100 points and of a higher difficulty level.

Platform: Hackerearth

Difficulty Level: Medium to Hard

Time Limit: 90 minutes

The first question was a standard DP problem similar to the Attendance Record II on Leetcode. The second question was from the Trie data structure topic. The problem was like this:

A professor has asked you to implement a basic search engine which gives you
term frequencies.
Implement the 3 functionalites 
1. Insert: store the given term and its frequency 
2. Query: output the frequency of terms with given prefix.
3. Update: update the frequency of given term.

Input:                                       Output:
6                                            12
I google 1
I sprinklr 10
I spring 2
Q spr

spr prefix comes in two words sprinklr and spring so 10+2 =12 .

You can find the complete problems on Leetcode Discuss.

Those who solved two completely and one partially were shortlisted for the interview round.

Technical Round 1

The technical interview is generally very friendly. You will have a lot of discussions with the interviewer. The interviewer will start the discussion by introducing themselves and then asking you questions about your data structures and algorithms (DSA) knowledge, as well as some questions related to the projects you have included in your resume. The round typically lasts for 30–45 minutes. Some of the topics from which questions were asked were stacks, maps, binary search, and sorting algorithms (Heap Sort, Merge Sort and Bucket Sort). Standard questions from platforms like Interviewbit and CSES were asked. Some questions were finding the next greater element which can be solved using stack, job scheduling (greedy pattern).

Some more questions:

1. Write the code for merge sort.
2. Write a program that spells out the english name(type string) for a given number(type int). input: 237; output: “two hundred and thirty seven”
3. Write a program that calculates the number of ways to climb a staircase with ’n’ number of steps, given you can either leap 2 steps or leap 1 step at a time.

Puzzles were also asked to some of the candidates. One of the standard puzzles asked was You have two candles and a box of matches. Each candle takes exactly one hour to burn, but they may not necessarily burn evenly — i.e., the first half might burn in the first 10 minutes and the second in the remaining 50). What durations of time can you measure using the 2 candles ? Times do not have to start when the first candles is lit.

A second puzzle asked was that You have 14 blue and 20 red balls in a bag. You pick out 2 balls at once. If the balls are of the same colour, you add to the bag a blue ball. If the balls are of a different colour, you add to the bag a red ball. What is the colour of the last ball that you will pick out of this bag.

Technical Round 2

In this round, the interviewer will test your knowledge of advanced data structures and algorithms (DSA) concepts, and discuss the projects listed in your resume. Sometimes, the interviewer gives you a choice on which topic would you like to discuss more, development or DSA. Topics such as AVL Trees, DP on Trees, Linked List were asked to some of the candidates. Some of the questions were:

1. Suppose there are n towns connected by m bidirectional roads. There are s towns among them with a book store. We want to find out the distance of each town from the nearest book store. If the town itself has one the distance is 0. This could be solved using multisource BFS.
2. Given a 2D binary matrix filled with 0’s and 1’s, find the largest rectangle containing all ones and return its area.

The interviewer also discussed projects and asked the following questions:

1. Why do you think the tech stack you have used is better than others available ?
2. Can you share your experience working as part of a team ?
3. What motivated you to create this project ?

HR Round

The HR round is a friendly and engaging conversation. Instead of reciting a prepared monologue, try to have a conversation with the interviewer. You can learn more about the company’s core values by visiting their website. Here’s a link to the Sprinklr’s cultural talent website (link). Maintain a positive attitude throughout the interview. The HR round typically lasts for 30 minutes. Your experiences and derived learnings are discussed. Here are a few questions that were asked during the HR round:

1. Share a moment which made you proud.
2. Share an incident where you learned a lesson.
3. Why Sprinklr ?
4. Have you ever met any difficult situation and how you solved that ?

You can find other standard HR round questions on websites like Interview bit and Coding Ninjas.

Some advice for the students sitting for internships this year

Embarking on this journey will be a blend of excitement, challenges, and occasional moments of stress. As the competition and content continue to evolve each year, it is crucial not to target all profiles indiscriminately. Instead, it is advisable to focus on one or two profiles and prepare diligently for them. Starting your preparation a bit earlier can give you an edge. Additionally, create impressive projects that showcase your skills and abilities.

Experiencing pre-interview nervousness is completely normal. Familiarize yourself with interview etiquette, quizzes, puzzles, and other relevant materials. During interviews, try to stay focused and approach the questions with the same mindset as during your preparation. If you have any doubts or uncertainties, don’t hesitate to ask the interviewer for clarification.

Internships often require strong interpersonal skills. Improve your communication, teamwork, and presentation abilities through activities like group projects, public speaking, or joining student organizations. Employers value candidates who can effectively collaborate and communicate in a professional environment.

Find resources for mock interviews, either through your college’s career center or with the help of friends, family, or mentors. Practice answering common interview questions, hone your interview etiquette, and receive feedback to improve your performance.

We hope that you found the blog informative. If you have any questions, you can connect with the students mentioned in the blog on Linkedin.