PlaceKode with Kartikey Sharma placed at Capillary

Here we come with a brand new article of PlaceKode by Uthaan, the Official Journalism and Recreational Club of ABV-Indian Institute of Information Technology and Management Gwalior. With us we have Kartikey Sharma who got placed at Capillary, sharing with us his journey, college life and his interview experience.

First of all, congratulations upon your well-deserved success. How charismatic it feels to be a part of an eminent software firm like Capillary?

Well, it felt charismatic the day I got selected. Now it’s just happiness! You always feel blessed and relaxed at the same time when you get placed early. It’s a big milestone for me and I am definitely looking forward to it.

Can you share something about your work profile?

Word on the street is that Capillary hired people in Back-End. Adding to that, most of the questions were asked related to back-end development as Capillary uses most of the back-end technologies like Django and Node.js. So, most probably I will be working there as a Software Development Engineer in Back-end.

What role does the resume play in an interview?

Certain sections like an outstanding academic achievement, some good internships and your projects mentioned in your resume definitely gives you a greater leverage to crack the interview.

Could you brief us about the whole interview process. What was all going under your skin?

Capillary had a technical round at first. On the technical round I was mostly neutral because I had faced rejections in the past. After that round many were shortlisted and at the end only 8 were called for the interview and YES! I was one of them.

The whole process was conducted in 4 different interviews in 4 different days. First one was an online round and other three were face to face on Skype.

At the starting I wasn’t much excited but as the days passed I started to be more optimistic than the previous day and excited as well.

A few questions asked which made me think out of the box were -

Design a warehouse and also optimize it. Dimensions of the warehouse and dimension of the boxes were given. I was required to optimize the way that the boxes are stored.

Sort an array of size n. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/sorting-algorithms/

Processes vs Threads, which was a question of operating systems. https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/difference-between-process-and-thread/

There was a discussion on cache and caching.

https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/cache-memory-in-computer-organization/

Various question were asked regarding internships, since I have mentioned Node.js in my internships, several questions were asked based on that .

How were the interviewers? Were they helping you to optimize your answer or were they stern?

They were really helpful. They created a conducive aura around me so that if I get stuck somewhere I could definitely ask them if I am hitting in the right direction. Companies are here to hire software engineers so they will give you directions. All you have to do is be smart enough to catch the hints.

As you have done internships in some of the most prominent companies like Amazon and Smart-Sense Technologies, how do these internships provides a helping hand in your interviews?

They played a massive role. An interview is largely based upon your confidence and internships contribute to them directly. If you’ve experienced something in the production environment then you will definitely have some theoretical knowledge about it too. The practical knowledge which we gain during discussions in an internship are vital as in an interview they always want to test you practically. They want to see the optimization of concepts not the theoretical knowledge.

Is there any knowledge or age benchmark for internships or a student in first year can also go for it?

Of course, a student in first year itself can have the internships. No one should bother about the pay scale or the nature of work in an internship because the work experience is what that counts, the essence of the corporate life, its meetings, projects and coordinated efforts will contribute to your learning stage of life, and it should be initiated as soon as possible. Moreover our college also provides enough opportunities to go for internships that can be done during the summer so we do not lose anything upon academic point of view.

How important are your communication skills to boost up your chance of being selected?

Yes, your communication skills will play a major role. For example, if you know the solution of the problem but you are not able to deliver your thoughts properly, you won’t be able to dive deeper into the details which would have otherwise impressed the interviewer. But it isn’t a paramount factor on which you are judged. Language is not a barrier anymore. Interviews in Hindi are also allowed. Your supreme skills will overpower the communication barrier, if any. But good hold over English and your confidence will give you an edge over others.

Are the courses offered in the institute helpful form the perspective of interview or just essential for the sake of degree?

Courses like Operating Systems, Database Management, Data Structures and Algorithms are covered very well in the institute. The logic and the basic idea is taught to us which can be extended to advanced level by our own efforts. Summing-up, the course study should not be neglected and it must go hand in hand with your skills.

As a beginner in coding environment which field should we focus on coding, development, machine learning, artificial intelligence etc. ? Also, which programming language do you consider the most essential from an interview point of view?

As a beginner I would suggest that you are not supposed to be master in any field. You should try to be a Jack of All Trades. You should learn every aspect a bit, at the end you never know what the interviewer is going to ask you that day!

In my case in Capillary, they were more interested in Java but more or less the focus was on the correct logic. So, programming language is not a barrier, syntax of any language can be mugged up in a week or less, the thing that’s important is your problem solving ability.

Interviewed by: Shambhavi Shandilya and Somya Surendra Singh

Photographed by: Himanshu Ruhela

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