Quora Interview

Quora interview was not different than other companies interviews. He asked an easy question in the beginning of the interview about generating all anagrams of a given string. Ok generate them using next_permutation. How to write next_permutation function, I implemented it using 2 pointers. I don't really know why I failed this interview, the only possible reason was that he was passing 'const string&' to the function and i was trying to modify the string within this function, and I did not notice that.

IBM Egypt Interview Preparation

Answer the following questions:

• What do you know about IBM?

Things to consider while researching:

• Find out about IBM’s history. (Your starter for ten: IBM celebrated its 100th birthday in 2011; it began life as the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company in 1911, through the merger of three other companies.)
• Research and development is a major growth area – IBM regularly receives more US patents than any other company. The technology industry moves fast, so keep tabs on IBM’s press releases to make sure you’re up to date.
• IBM originally focused mainly on hardware but has shifted towards consultancy and software. It’s important to show that you know about its products and services.
• Invests a lot of money on R&D
• IBM acquired 150 companies since 2000, big data and cloud computing.

• Why do you want to work for us?

I came from an ACM background where IBM is the main sponsor to the event,, support for innovation, challenges, solving big problems in the MENA region, learning opportunities.

• Tell me one thing that IBM has done recently that has impressed you.

Smarter Planet, Smarter Cities

IBM Smarter Cities^[23] is an initiative of IBM Smarter Planet, created to provide hardware, middleware, software and service solutions for city governments and agencies. The solutions implement existing IBM technology such as IBM cloud computing, analytics, mobility and social business.

To date, Smarter Cities serves thousands of cities around the world in all areas of management^[24] including public safety, health and human services, education,^[25] infrastructure,^[26] energy, water, and environmental. IBM Smarter cities also include citizen participation through People4SmarterCities.com,^[27] so they can be part of the technological advances transforming their cities.

Examples of major cities around the world using IBM Smarter Cities technology:^[28]

1) Year 2010, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil implemented an emergency response solution using IBM technology in anticipation of hosting the 2016 Olympics and 2014 World Cup.

2) Year 2013, New Taipei City Police, implemented an IBM solution to enhance police productivity and ensuring public safety.

3) Year 2013, Tucson, Arizona, implemented a water conservation solution with IBM focused on smart metering and water leak detection.

4) Year 2013, Digital Delta transforms Dutch water management system using Big Data.

• What is IBM's current stock price?

~144.4 USD

IBM net worth is around $47.9 billion.

• Who is the CEO?

Ginni Rometty

Amr S.Talaat

• Who are our main competitors?

Microsoft, HP, Intel, Apple, Oracle, EMC, HP ENTERPRISE SERVICES, LLC

three major divisions: hardware, software and services.  The former is organized by product lines: x (based on x86), i, p (powerPC based), and z (the mainframes). The software division has five pillars: Lotus (email, groupware), Rational (development tools), DB2 (database), Tivoli (enterprise management),Websphere (middleware). Services has Global Technology Services (IT consulting), and Global Business Services (business and strategy consulting). 

• Why are you applying to this role?
• Why should we pick you?

Hire me for a month and see for yourself.

• What was the most challenging part of your previous job? How did you deal with this?

debugging.

• What would you do if you won a million pounds?

• Is there anything else you'd like us to know?
• What is your approach to leadership?
• How many petrol stations are there in the UK?
• Tell me about a time when you solved a problem creatively?

chess tournament.

• Give examples from your own experiences which show your leadership and initiative skills.

ACM training for AUC Teams.

• How do you feel about having a job which requires you to travel frequently?

Cool

• How do you feel about having a job that requires you to spend a lot of time away from home?

Cool

Booking.com HR Interview

Questions:

• Why are you interested in Booking.com?

1. Working on scalability problems, that are tough and represent a huge learning opportunity. 
2. Moving around for the first 12 months, and getting exposed to different teams and project is really awesome for learning, experience sharing and knowing new people.
3. The idea of each team as a small startup is great, because it has a huge space for innovation.
4. 

• What is the most challenging task you have faced?

Google maps like project.

• What is it like to work at Booking.com?

Check Quora for the answer.

• Who are the founders of booking.com?

The founder of Bookings dot nl was Geert-Jan Bruisma. His business model included a number of resellers, the largest of which bought him out and took over the company. The team around Kees Koolen and Arthur Kosten took over the company and grew it a lot. Geert-Jan left the company and pursued other activities.

In 2006, Kees and his management team sold the company to Priceline, in order to finance growth. Before aquiring Bookings, Priceline aquired a UK hotel company, Active Hotels, and later integrated them into Bookings, renaming the resulting company Booking dot com.

Priceline decided to leave the management of the new Booking to Kees Koolen, who managed to grow the business between 50 and 70 percent year-on-year. What has been less than 3 percent of the total Priceline group of companies in 2006 is now over ninety percent of the current, much larger Priceline Group. Good for William Shatner, one of the Priceline investors. 

Geert-Jan has since returned to Booking and is currently holding a position in IT.

source: https://www.quora.com/Who-are-the-founders-of-booking-com 

• Who is the CEO?

Darren R. Huston

General Preperation:

• Model answers for booking.com behavioral interview questions
• Coding test preparation
• Business questions always say we need data to make decisions
• SQL databases
• Search for people who work there using linkedin
• Expect a design question

• How booking make money

Takes commission from the hotels on each reservation

Direct Advertising on the website

Deals and offers

Booking reserve rooms for a period of time from the hotels and resell these rooms and it takes the risk of not selling these rooms

They sell data and reports to market based on their analytics

Pramp Quest

Doing 10 Mock Interviews:

1. Completed. Tuesday September 22 at 9 pm.
2. Completed. Wednesday September 23 at 8 pm.
3. Completed. Thursday September 24 at 8 pm.
4. Completed. Friday September 25 at 7 pm.
5. Completed. Saturday September 26 at 7 pm.
6. Completed. Sunday September 27.
7. Completed. Monday September 28.
8. Completed. Tuesday September 29.
9. Completed. Friday October 2.
10. Completed. Monday October 12.

Completed~~!

Amazon Coding Test and First Interview

# Coding Test
Amazon coding test was an average test (my hardest ever was Codility test for Codility which I thankfully passed). It consisted of 3 problems all easy to solve, but with tricky corner cases. It was on Codility were you can lock a problem after you finish it, or not and leave to the end, all up to you. My advice is do not lock the problems just leave it the end. I locked a problem then I figured out there was a subtle bug in my code, it would make my solution fail for most of the cases. Anyway I passed this test and moved the first interview. I think at Amazon they take both your coding test and the interview together to determine if you will pass to the next phase or not, that is why I did the interview although failing drastically in the coding test.

Lessons learnt:
1. Avoid over confidence.
2. Write test cases before submitting your code, imagine this code is going for production wouldn't you do so?

# Interview
The interview was really hard, he asked question about system design, algorithms, behavioral, knowledge, scalability, lots of aspects. Here are the list of questions:

1. A question about My pattern analysis course? He was so detailed oriented.
2. Did you dive deep before? How?
3. What is the difference between an abstract class and an interface?
4. What is a static method?
5. How do you use static method?
6. What is the difference between Public, Private, and Protected?
7. What happens you write an address in the address bar, until you load the page?
8. How to make the DNS so fast?
9. How to make sure your cache is valid? How to make it fast?
10. Why a system might be in an inconsistent state?
11. Give an example of a system that is available but not necessary consistent.
12. What is the complexity of inserting into a hash function?
13. What is the worst case scenario?
14. What to use instead the linked list within the hashmap?
15. What will be the complexity of that?
16. Given about 50M Resume remove the duplicates?

Lessons Learnt:

1. Sometimes the question is really simple like what is the complexity of inserting into a hashmap, do not over estimate the problem just give the answer O(length of input)

2. Do not just say things you know, say things related to the question.

3. You will be asked really tough questions about everything you have in your resume, so be mindful about what you write there.

4. Design questions should be answered in a specific way: a) Determine the use cases and the constraints b) Abstract Design c) Understanding Bottlenecks d) Scaling your design.

5. The interviewer should be treated as a co-worker not an interrogator, so be friendly.

6. Ask questions don't jump into answers without clear definition of the question.

7. RULE OF THUMB, imagine every question you are being asked is a problem you face at work, for example if it was a design question, imagine it will be your project for the quarter.

8. Do not say unrelated, unnecessary shit, as the interviewer will most probably ask about it.

Tips:

Amazon looks for experienced developers rather than competitive programmers, so in order to get there go work for a year or so then apply again.

Twitter Coding Test

Twitter coding test a very weird coding test, it consisted of 2 questions. The first one was so easy, I did it in under 5 minutes. The second one I thought it was also easy but I coded in around 10-15 minutes. The problem is I did not fully understand the problem, and it turns out to be one of the hardest problems I have ever seen in coding tests (generally they should be easy in comparison with ACM problems). When I figured that out I was only left with 20 minutes, now I have to figure out a solution, write it, and test it. To be honest it took me some time to figure out the idea, but finally I got it. I wrote it down, but there was a bug with my code, I did not manage to fix within the time frame of the test, that is way I ended up with only 1 problem solved, so I received the 'thank you' hated email the next day.

Lessons learnt:
1. Verify your f***** idea before implementing.
2. Read the problem clearly.
3. Avoid over confidence.
4. Brush up your algorithmic knowledge before indulging into such tests.

The good thing is I can apply again in 6 months, but online.

Tip:
I think at twitter they want to see your contribution to the open source community, so fill your resume with your great contributions.

Introduction

The goal of this blog is to share the full experience of getting an offer at Google.

Current State:
1. Having a contact with recruiter there, might start interviewing by November.
2. Did an internship at Facebook last summer.
3. Failing a couple of coding tests although being an ACM ICPC World Finalist (will address these failures in separate posts).
4. Failing a screening interview, although doing an internship at Facebook (will address this in a separate post).
5. Can not pass screening process of lots companies although doing an internship at Facebook, and winning the champion of Africa and Middle East in the last ACM ICPC World Finals (will address this in a separate post).
6. Joining the open source community but not committing as expected (will address this in a separate post).
7. Last year masters student.


Problems I should work on:
1. Communication
2. Saying unnecessary shit during the interview
3. Having no social life (Is this related?)
4. Not Following interviewing guidelines, especially in design questions.
5. Develop something people actually use to increase my self-confidence, something for the public not for a company (related to open-source).





This blog will be a timeline of all the effort I make facing my current problems, and trying to fix them until I can get that Google offer.

Note: I will do my best to keep this blog organized and to the point (not guaranteed).