CQ_DataCrux | Yogendra Mittal | Zomato
Interviewer: Hello Yogendra! I am Sindhi Vishal from communiqué. First of all, a big congratulations for making it into Zomato. Please tell us about the general interview process for the companies you interviewed? Please mention the number of rounds and the nature of the interview process.
Yogendra: Hii Vishal. I interviewed for 2 companies that are Zomato and Sprinklr. The General process was the same for both the companies that include an Online assessment based on which they shortlist the candidates for the Personal interview. I interviewed in Sprinklr for the product engineer role and in Zomato for the Business Analyst role.For the product engineer role at Sprinklr the total number of PI’s were 4 which consists of 3 technical and 1 HR round and for the Business analyst role at Zomato, there was only one round which included both technical as well as HR questions.
In the online assessment of the product engineer role at Sprinklr, they asked three coding problems of which I was only able to do 2 questions completely and got shortlisted. For the Zomato BA role, the test had 2 sections. The first section has MCQs that include quantitative and aptitude problems and the second section has a case study in which you have to write answers on the test platform itself.
Interviewer: Could you please list down questions you were asked in the different rounds? Puzzles, HR questions, any other discussion in general that you think will prove to be helpful for students.
Yogendra: Okay, I’ll begin with the questions asked in the Sprinklr. So, ln Sprinklr for the product engineer role, my resume was given to the AI department of the Sprinklr. For product engineer roles they have various profiles within the role and based on your resume you will be interviewed by the specific department of the company.
In the first round, the interviewer asked me some basic questions about Machine Learning like what is Logistic Regression in layman terms. How does Logistic Regression work, followed by some cross-questions on the statistics behind the model? After that, I was given one coding problem “Sorted permutation rank”(https://www.interviewbit.com/problems/sorted-permutation-rank/). I solved this problem within 10 minutes. After that, he asked another version of this problem“(https://www.interviewbit.com/problems/sorted-permutation-rank-with-repeats/). I got stuck at some point on this problem then he switched to a different problem. He asked me about graphs and told me to implement BFS, DFS which were very basic algorithms in graphs. After completing this, he switched back to the previous problem and then gave me some hints with the help of which I was able to solve that problem and was proceeded to the next round. The interview lasted for around 75 minutes.
The second round was with the associate director of the data science department of the company. The interviewer asked me to walk through my resume. After that, he asked me to explain the best project that I have done in my resume. There were some cross-questions on the project and after completing this he asked me 1 coding problem “Allocate Books”(https://www.interviewbit.com/problems/allocate-books/). After this, the entire interview went into the deep learning field. As I have mentioned some sequential models in my resume like VGG16, Resnets, he started asking me about these models and told me to explain their architecture. The discussion went for around 30 min in which some situations were given related to Image classification and I had to give some solutions and methods on how to implement DL models in such scenarios. The interview ended with a probability problem
“If three points are chosen at random on a circle, and a triangle is formed by taking the three chosen points as its vertices, what is the probability that the triangle thus formed contains the centre of the circle within it?”
The interview went for around 90 min and I proceeded for round 3.
Round 3 was completely focused on the mathematics of neural networks. The interviewer told me to derive the equations of forward as well as backpropagation which took me 30 min and then he asked some questions about batch normalization, regularisation techniques and how can I optimize the speed of the neural networks?. In the last question, I was not able to deliver what he exactly wanted, So I did not proceed to the HR round.
For Zomato it was only one round and the interview was focused on data science. The interviewer asked me to introduce myself and walk through my CV. Then he asked me about my internships and projects in detail. After that, he asked me about basic machine learning statistics like what is hypothesis testing, what is logistic regression, what is linear regression, bias, variance, and all. Following this, he asked me to open google sheets and asked me to perform some basic operations in it. For example, he asked me to generate random phone numbers in excel and subsequently asked me how to write that code in python. Then he asked about SQL and asked me to write down some queries. Following this, he gave me a scenario like, there was this customer feedback survey and the company is getting negative feedback, so what might be the reasons behind this issue and how would I use machine learning models to get meaningful insights from the available data. Another scenario was given on Twitter hate speech issue. How to categorize the hate speech, what features to select to make a statistical model for categorization, and solving the issue. It was a brainstorming session with the interviewer that went for like 30 minutes. After that, he asked me a basic HR question like “Why do you want to become an Analyst ?”. The entire interview lasted for like 75 minutes and I was finally selected by the company.
Interviewer: What are the things that a pre-final year student can do to maximize their chances of getting through a company in analytics?
Yogendra: For a pre-final year student, I would suggest clearing out all your basics of data science and statistics if you are targeting the analytics role. Practice competitive programming because most of the companies will ask coding problems in the online assessment.
I suggest doing internships and projects in a similar field that helps to gain in-depth knowledge and practical experience, participate in various Data science competitions like OpenIIT Data, Interhall Data, and competitions on Kaggle.
I’m suggesting some courses that I have done.
- Machine Learning by Stanford University (Tutor — Andrew Ng)
- Machine Learning A-Z™: Hands-On Python & R In Data Science (Udemy)
- Analytics Edge | edX
- Deeplearning.ai (Only if you want to explore Deep Learning)
And there are many courses that you can go through to gain more knowledge.
There are some channels on youtube like stat quest, Krish Naik that you can refer to for data science and statistics.
For puzzles and probability refer to Heard on the street, 50 Challenging problems in probability, Brainstellar, GFG. For practicing aptitude, logic, and quants you can go to prepleaf (https://www.prepleaf.com/) and practice test papers over there. For Guesstimates refer “Case Interview Cracked” channel on youtube.
Interviewer: What content in the CV can make it stand apart from the general public?
Yogendra: So, things that make you stand apart are your internships and projects. The way you write down your work in your CV is what matters. For the Analytics role, mention the models, tools techniques you used while working. Show the impact of your work, what value did you bring to the company, how the company benefited from your work, use numbers while quantifying your impact. Mention skills properly, libraries that you used and all. Use action verbs while writing down the points (Refer -https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/opia/job-search-toolkit/action-verbs/). Finally, it’s all about how you present your work.
Interviewer: How did you prepare for the rounds involved once you were shortlisted?
Yogendra: I went to GFG and searched for interview experiences. Here you will get to know about the experience of the people who have interviewed for the same companies in the past. I analyzed what types of questions specific companies ask, what topics do they pick up, and based on that I brushed up my concepts.
Interviewer: What are some of the Frequently Asked Questions in the companies that you faced and think students must prepare for? More specifically, in the context of HR rounds.
Yogendra: So, I have this one doc having 28–30 questions, specifically for HR round having general questions like where do you see yourself after 5 years, why we should select you, are you planning for higher studies, explain the situation when you resolved some conflict, explain a situation where you showed your leadership skills, etc.
Students can refer to this list of general questions in the link given below:-
Frequently asked questions in HR rounds
Interviewer: Anything else that you’d want to share with the students?
Yogendra: Prepare thoroughly for the profile you are targeting for. Be specific, don’t switch profiles in between the preparation phase. I have seen many of my colleagues who did this and struggled. Target one specific profile, have a backup If you are in doubt. Have mock interview sessions with your friends before the interview process. This will boost your confidence and will remove the hesitation to speak in front of the interviewer.
Interviewer: Thank you so much Yogendra for your time. It’ll surely be very helpful for all of the KGP junta preparing for analytics profiles. Thanks a lot for giving this interview to Communiqué IIT Kharagpur and we wish you all the very best for all your future endeavours.
