What is the interview process like at Qualcomm?

Qualcomm's loop is unusually front-loaded on a negatively-marked MCQ screen: three timed 30-minute sections (aptitude, C programming, and a choice of CS core or digital electronics / communications) sat on HirePro or HackerRank, followed by two to three technical interviews and a short HR or hiring-manager chat. The technical rounds lean far more on C fundamentals, pointers, memory layout, structure padding, endianness, bit manipulation and operating-systems internals than on LeetCode-style algorithm grinding, and almost every account includes a logic puzzle plus a deep grilling on the candidate's own projects. Hardware tracks (SoC verification, physical design, FPGA) swap the CS section for digital electronics and interview on CMOS, timing, FSMs and Verilog instead, while experienced embedded and modem candidates get RTOS, IPC, priority inversion and driver-level questions across five or six rounds.

What topics does Qualcomm test in interviews?

Commonly reported topics include Theoretical computer science, Aptitude, Puzzles, Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms, Operating systems.

Qualcomm Interview Questions & Experience

Embedded Software Engineer

Not selected

unknown. 1 round. Shared by georgeburdell on hn, 2020-06-23

1Onsite interviewTechnicalMostly theoretical CS questions despite the role being embedded software and the candidate's hardware background. Performed poorly enough that the day was cut short.Covered: Theoretical computer science

Associate Software Engineer (embedded/systems)

Outcome not shared

Experienced. 5 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2017-01-07

1Telephonic screenPhone screenA roughly 70-minute call taken by two interviewers that opened on the candidate's company and college projects, then dug into memory management, CPU scheduling, deadlock with real-world examples and inter-process communication. It closed with a few coding asks on linked lists, tree views and reimplementing a standard C library copy routine.Covered: Operating systems, Concurrency, Past projects, Data structures & algorithms
2Onsite technicalTechnicalA two-hour face-to-face in Hyderabad that started with the interviewer explaining the role, then walked through every project on the resume including how the candidate had handled memory overflow and crash defects in production. The rest was endianness portability, a substring-counting problem asked for several different implementations, and a batch of pointer output puzzles plus header-inclusion scoping questions.Covered: Debugging, Arrays & strings, OOP, Past projects
3Onsite technicalTechnicalAn 80-minute round revisiting the previous interviewer's questions before moving to process versus thread, mutexes and locking strategies for shared containers, and C storage classes. Coding was bit reversal and a tree distance problem, with follow-ups on the program's call stack, stack versus heap and function pointers.Covered: Operating systems, Concurrency, Data structures & algorithms
4Onsite technicalTechnicalThe hardest round, focused on how memory is accessed across functions. It covered inline functions and when the compiler ignores them, writing a sizeof-equivalent, loop detection in a circular list, bit counting, and static variables and functions.Covered: Operating systems, Debugging, Data structures & algorithms
5Manager and HRHiring managerA short 20-30 minute wrap-up on the previous employer and projects, the role on offer, notice period, motivation for Qualcomm, relocation and salary expectations.Covered: Behavioral, Past projects

Embedded software application developer

Received an offer

Experienced. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Telephonic screenPhone screenA CV-driven call that pushed hard on how the candidate's telecom projects actually worked, then covered deadlock detection and prevention, software watchdog timers, schedulers, core dumps and error handling, memory management, IPC and synchronisation primitives. The author notes the interviewer kept probing each answer until satisfied.Covered: Resume deep-dive, Operating systems, Concurrency, Domain knowledge
2Rounds 2-6: Onsite technical panelTechnicalFive back-to-back onsite rounds of 40-60 minutes each covering the C memory map and storage classes, register spilling, signal-based IPC, code-snippet debugging, linked-list manipulation, function pointers and void pointers, SIM and embedded memory handling, endianness, library versus system calls, and priority inversion in an RTOS. One round asked the candidate to design a timer module handling client timeouts to see how they used callbacks and function pointers.Covered: Operating systems, Low-level design, Debugging, Data structures & algorithms
3HRBehavioralA casual conversation about Qualcomm's culture, the candidate's aspirations and interview feedback.Covered: Behavioral
4Second loop for a different teamTechnicalAfter being turned down for the first position the candidate was reconsidered for another team within a month and did three more technical rounds: network traffic and TCP versus UDP, weighted round-robin scheduling, memory leaks and the tools to find them, buffer overflows and stack smashing, race conditions and priority inversion, plus repeated linked-list and library-function reimplementation questions.Covered: Networking, Operating systems, Concurrency, Debugging

Associate Engineer (wireless/ECE)

Received an offer

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Online assessmentOnline assessmentA 90-minute negatively-marked test split into three 30-minute blocks: aptitude, computer fundamentals, and a core block mixing C output and error-spotting with digital electronics and communications theory.Covered: Aptitude, Operating systems, DBMS, Networking, OOP, Domain knowledge
2Technical interviewTechnicalA 50-minute wireless-theory round after the interviewer introduced his own work at Qualcomm. It ran from RF bands and the 1G-to-5G evolution through 3GPP releases, call establishment, modulation and spectrum, MIMO and massive MIMO, beamforming and millimetre wave.Covered: Domain knowledge, Networking
3Technical interviewTechnicalProgram execution flow in C including macros and the preprocessor, OS concepts, a project discussion, then linked-list cycle detection and a bit-setting problem, closing with the classic hundred-doors toggling puzzle.Covered: Operating systems, Data structures & algorithms, Puzzles, Past projects
4Senior managerHiring managerA conversational round with a manager of fifteen-plus years that included a backtracking problem on placing queens on a board, then shifted to HR-style questions.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Behavioral

Hardware engineer (campus)

Outcome not shared

New grad. 3 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Online testOnline assessmentThree sections of twenty questions in thirty minutes each with negative marking, taken by roughly 1500 students across both the hardware and software tracks. Section three offered a choice between CS and digital, and the hardware applicant took digital: combinational and sequential circuits, Boolean algebra, CMOS, BJT and data converters.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Domain knowledge
2Technical interviewTechnicalA 50-minute Microsoft Teams round where the candidate kept paper for sketching. It covered inverter transfer characteristics and threshold voltage, noise margins, drawing a CMOS inverter and an NMOS cross-section, body effect, state machines, writing a mod-3 counter in Verilog and the mistakes people make writing it, and gate construction from multiplexers.Covered: Domain knowledge, Resume deep-dive
3Technical interviewTechnicalA 35-40 minute round the same day: a two-cube calendar logic puzzle, building gates from NAND and from a multiplexer, XOR algebra, drawing and explaining a CMOS NAND, setup and hold time, Mealy versus Moore machines, and a sequence-detector state diagram. It ended with a discussion of job-location preference, and no HR round followed for anyone.Covered: Domain knowledge, Puzzles

SoC verification engineer (hardware, 6-month intern + full time)

Outcome not shared

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2024-09-25

1Online assessmentOnline assessmentThree negatively-marked 30-minute sections: aptitude at easy to moderate level, C programming at moderate level, and digital at moderate to hard. The company was on campus for three hardware tracks: physical design, SoC verification and FPGA design.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Domain knowledge
2Technical interviewTechnicalA short twenty-minute round with an introduction, a project walkthrough, an explanation of the SoC verification role and a check that the candidate was comfortable with it, then array-based C questions such as sorting and finding the second largest element with complexity follow-ups.Covered: Past projects, Data structures & algorithms, Behavioral
3Technical interviewTechnicalA dense forty-minute round spanning ring oscillators, setup and hold time, static timing analysis, op-amp feedback and summing circuits, clock skew, uncertainty and jitter, two-flop synchronisers, cache lines and dirty bits, watchdog timers, SRAM versus DRAM and volatility, and a Verilog gate built from a multiplexer. It closed with two classic puzzles on toggling gates and the shortest ant path across a cube.Covered: Domain knowledge, Puzzles, Data structures & algorithms
4HRBehavioralA five to ten minute chat on background, skills, hobbies, strengths and preferred work location.Covered: Behavioral, Shift availability

Software engineer (campus, full time)

Received an offer

New grad. 3 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2022-07-01

1Written testOnline assessmentA negatively-marked MCQ screen in three sections covering aptitude and data interpretation, C output and error questions weighted towards logical and bit operations, and core CS including sorting internals, OS, networks and DBMS. There is a sectional cutoff announced in the pre-placement talk.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, OOP, DBMS, Networking
2Technical interviewTechnicalOpened on structure versus union and structure padding, array versus linked list trade-offs, and dynamic allocation differences, then moved to four coding problems written in a plain text editor including building a linked list of employee records and an optimised power-of-four check.Covered: Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms, OOP
3Technical interviewTechnicalA project discussion focused on motivation and differentiation, then a long operating-systems block on paging, segmentation, page faults and thrashing, process versus thread and context switching, and spooling. Networking followed with the TCP handshake, connection teardown, flow and congestion control, and an ask to explain TCP versus UDP to a non-technical person, closing with a merge-two-sorted-lists coding problem.Covered: Past projects, Operating systems, Networking, Data structures & algorithms

Software engineer (campus, full time)

Received an offer

Experienced, not stated. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2023-12-01

1Online assessmentOnline assessmentA 90-minute HirePro test of sixty negatively-marked questions in three auto-advancing 30-minute sections: aptitude and logical reasoning, C and C++ programming MCQs weighted to structs, unions, pointers and storage keywords, and CS fundamentals with an emphasis on threads.Covered: Aptitude, OOP, Operating systems, Data structures & algorithms
2Technical interviewTechnicalA 50-55 minute round that spent the first ten minutes on two resume projects and prior work experience at a previous employer, then structure member alignment and padding, a probability question about flipping bits to reach a target value, and a bit-reversal coding problem explained with test cases.Covered: Past projects, Arrays & strings, Aptitude
3Technical interviewTechnicalAbout an hour beginning with favourite subjects and what the candidate had recently learned in them, then a nested-pointer output trace, a broad OS block on mutex versus semaphore, race conditions, deadlock strategies, context switching, inodes, paging and virtual memory, a short networking segment, and an open-ended design question about real-time vote tallying under privacy constraints.Covered: Operating systems, Concurrency, Networking, System design
4HRBehavioralA standard closing HR conversation before the offer, which the candidate accepted for a Hyderabad or Bangalore location.Covered: Behavioral

Software engineer (off-campus, referral)

Outcome not shared

Experienced. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-11

1Online written testOnline assessmentA HirePro test of three negatively-marked 30-minute sections. The programming section leaned on pointer precedence, enums, unions, macros, the static keyword and structure padding. The technical section on OS memory, IPC and scheduling with a few DBMS and networking questions. The author stresses picking which questions to skip because of the negative marking.Covered: Aptitude, OOP, Operating systems, DBMS, Networking
2Onsite panelPanelFlown to Hyderabad at the company's expense, this round had two interviewers moving quickly through linked-list loop detection, a stack built on a linked list, why 2D array parameters need a column count, reimplementing a memory copy routine and its pitfalls, a string-validation problem, bit flipping between two numbers, paging and deadlock, and structure padding.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Operating systems, Arrays & strings
3Technical interviewTechnicalThe C compilation pipeline phase by phase, structure versus union and where each is used, tree level-order traversal and node deletion with corner cases, what happens end to end when a URL is entered in a browser, endianness detection, and the differences between repeaters, bridges, hubs and routers.Covered: Operating systems, Trees, Networking, Arrays & strings
4Hiring managerHiring managerOpened with seven or eight motivation questions about switching early, location and notice period, then went technical again: the OSI layers, process states, writing code that deadlocks and then fixing it, IPC, string length, IP address validation and nibble swapping with an optimisation follow-up.Covered: Behavioral, Networking, Operating systems, Arrays & strings

Software engineer (full stack, C# and Angular tooling)

Received an offer

Experienced. 5 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2020-04-27

1Technical interviewTechnicalAlgorithmic problems including implementing XOR without the operator, a stateful string-and-integer replay problem, thread prioritisation with a priority queue, quicksort and linked-list cycle detection, followed by conceptual SQL and NoSQL questions.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Concurrency, SQL
2Technical interviewTechnicalSpiral tree traversal, the producer-consumer problem with mutex and semaphore follow-ups, and a design ask to implement browser forward and back navigation plus searchable history, alongside questions about the current job and reasons for leaving.Covered: Trees, Concurrency, Low-level design
3Technical interviewTechnicalStarted with an introduction to the team and how its work maps to company goals, then a file-upload implementation with scaling follow-ups for very large files, scenario-based debugging questions, and a discussion of role expectations and culture.Covered: System design, Debugging, Past projects
4HRBehavioralGeneral questions plus salary negotiation and benefits discussion.Covered: Behavioral
5HackerRank assessmentOnline assessmentBecause this candidate was called directly to interview, the coding test came afterwards: three or four easy-to-medium coding questions plus MCQs on Angular and C#. The offer letter arrived about three weeks later.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Domain knowledge

Software engineer

Not selected

Experienced. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2021-09-10

1Online assessmentOnline assessmentA HackerRank test with an MCQ section of code-output questions on C#, ASP.NET, AngularJS and OOP, plus two coding questions on a binary tree view and a heap-based repeated-merge cost problem.Covered: OOP, Data structures & algorithms, Trees
2Technical interviewTechnicalConducted in a shared code editor and confined to Python and Unix: decorators, lambdas, map, reduce and filter, the meaning of the shebang line, and the behaviour of assorted shell commands.Covered: Operating systems, Debugging
3Technical interviewTechnicalThree problems solved on a plain virtual whiteboard: a binary tree view, a three-way partition sort, and checking whether one string is a rotation of another.Covered: Trees, Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms
4Resume discussionHiring managerLargely a discussion of prior company work and personal projects. The candidate was rejected after this round.Covered: Past projects, Resume deep-dive

Software engineer (campus, full time and internship)

Received an offer

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2024-10-10

1Written testOnline assessmentThree negatively-marked sections of twenty questions in thirty minutes. The C section was almost entirely output-based and heavy on bit manipulation, and the third section could be taken as CS, communications or electronics. Out of 153 who sat it, 73 reached interviews.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, OOP
2Technical interviewTechnicalA 30-minute round on linked-list loop detection and loop length, mutex versus semaphore, virtual memory and paging, stack versus heap, thrashing, memory mapping, threading and pthreads, page-fault handling and deadlock avoidance, ending with a mislabelled-boxes puzzle. 43 of 73 advanced.Covered: Operating systems, Concurrency, Puzzles, Data structures & algorithms
3Technical interviewTechnicalA 35-minute round on inline functions and their limits, how a function call is implemented at the OS level, interrupt handling and its effect on execution, constructing a thread interleaving that produces a wrong result without a mutex, compiler phases and intermediate code optimisation, makefiles and multi-file builds, static versus dynamic linking, and extern.Covered: Operating systems, Concurrency, Debugging
4HRBehavioralA 15-minute round where the interviewer questioned essentially every line of the CV, applied some stress questions including which OA section went badly and why, and asked about relocation. 18 full-time and 4 internship offers were made that evening.Covered: Resume deep-dive, Behavioral

Software and hardware engineer (campus, full time)

Received an offer

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-14

1Online assessmentOnline assessmentThree auto-advancing negatively-marked sections. The author found data interpretation the hardest part. The programming section covered pointers, structures, memory problems and bit manipulation, and the third section covered DBMS, OS and networks.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, DBMS, Operating systems, Networking
2Technical interviewTechnicalA deep dive on one project, then C memory questions on structures and padding, calloc versus malloc, how free knows the block size, the process memory layout, variable scope and extern, void pointers, threading and pthread stack behaviour, page-fault handling, a power-of-two bit trick, an interval-scheduling problem and a mislabelled-boxes puzzle.Covered: Past projects, Operating systems, Concurrency, Puzzles
3Technical interviewTechnicalResume and machine-learning project questions, then system calls, kernel versus operating system, the compiler phases and intermediate code optimisation, static and dynamic libraries, cache memory and cache coherence, scheduler versus dispatcher, applications of unions and linked-list loop removal.Covered: Operating systems, Debugging, Data structures & algorithms
4HRBehavioralA 20-minute conversation on motivation for Qualcomm, background, preferred city and relocation. 22 candidates received full-time offers across software and hardware.Covered: Behavioral

Software engineer (campus)

Outcome not shared

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Online testOnline assessmentThe standard three-section negatively-marked screen of sixty questions.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Operating systems
2Technical interviewTechnicalA long round, around ninety minutes on Teams, that began with projects and stated areas of interest, then asked for a cache-eviction structure coded and dry-run in a shared editor with an optimisation follow-up, process scheduling, livelock, scheduler versus dispatcher, threading, interrupt servicing, DMA, and structure alignment and padding coded first arithmetically and then with bit operators.Covered: Operating systems, Data structures & algorithms, Past projects
3Technical interviewTechnicalAn easier round: several bit-manipulation problems, then scheduling algorithms including the convoy effect and why shortest-job-first is impractical, round-robin quantum trade-offs, disk scheduling algorithms and which is most practical, a Linux security question drawn from the resume, and division without the divide operator.Covered: Operating systems, Data structures & algorithms
4HRBehavioralDescribed by the author as a formality round.Covered: Behavioral

Software engineer (campus, NIT)

Received an offer

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-12

1Online testOnline assessmentThree auto-advancing 30-minute sections with negative marking: aptitude and verbal, C output questions requiring solid pointer knowledge, and core CS. About twenty students were shortlisted from the author's profile.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Operating systems
2Technical interviewTechnicalAn in-person round at another campus where the interviewer spent roughly half an hour on a single project, then moved through logic puzzles tied to the candidate's chess hobby, pointer and C questions, and basic linked-list and tree questions.Covered: Past projects, Puzzles, Trees, Arrays & strings
3Technical interviewTechnicalA 45-minute round on the CV, internship work, drawing the database schema of a project, some Python questions and basic algorithms, ending with the final-year project. Some peers got a third technical round or heavier OS questions instead.Covered: Resume deep-dive, DBMS, Data structures & algorithms
4HRBehavioralBasic HR questions. The author warns that not everyone who reached this round was selected.Covered: Behavioral

Intern (software and hardware campus drive)

Received an offer

Internship. 4 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2024-10-13

1Written testOnline assessmentA HirePro MCQ test in three negatively-marked 30-minute sections, with the third chosen between computer science and electronics. About a quarter of the batch advanced.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Operating systems, Networking
2Technical interviewTechnicalA conversational round with a long-tenured interviewer covering language preference and compiler questions, resume skills and projects with counter-scenarios for each, a machine-learning project theory check, linked-list code with complexity, and networking device and TCP/IP questions drawn from a prior internship.Covered: Past projects, Networking, Data structures & algorithms, OOP
3Technical interview (peers)TechnicalThe author skipped straight to HR, but reports peers were asked search and sort complexity comparisons, largest histogram rectangle, queue via linked list, singly versus doubly linked lists, heapsort and quicksort analysis, spiral tree traversal, segmentation and paging, producer-consumer, thread priority queues and a mislabelled-boxes puzzle.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Concurrency, Operating systems, Puzzles
4HRBehavioralA friendly round on educational choices, profile interest and general career questions.Covered: Behavioral

Intern (software)

Received an offer

Internship. 2 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Online examOnline assessmentThree negatively-marked sections. The programming block covered OS, C output and error prediction, memory allocation, bit manipulation and tree questions, with no OOP or DBMS. The third section offered a choice, and the software applicant took a verbal and comprehension paper.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Operating systems, Trees
2Technical interviewTechnicalA single 45-minute Teams round that opened on introduction and hobbies to settle nerves, then ran through missing numbers, non-repeating elements, integer overflow checks, memory sizes of a union versus a struct, pair-with-sum, swapping odd and even bits and matrix multiplication. The interviewer wanted optimal approaches explained rather than code written.Covered: Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms, OOP

Summer intern (software)

Received an offer

Internship. 3 rounds. Shared by Tapasweni Pathak (compiled on GeeksforGeeks) on gfg, 2024-10-01

1Written testOnline assessmentAn online MCQ test of around 55 questions in an hour across aptitude, programming ability with heavily nested loops, and a core section weighted towards operating systems.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Operating systems, DBMS
2Technical interviewTechnicalA single 90-minute round where the interviewer required correct pseudocode and properly-symboled flowcharts for two projects, then covered priority inversion, the volatile qualifier, storage classes and static versus global, a one-line bit-toggle, coupling and cohesion, all the OOP concepts and how C++ implements them, how an operating system is used by application software, drivers, CPU scheduling trade-offs, search and sort algorithms, and improving algorithms on time and space.Covered: Past projects, Operating systems, OOP, Data structures & algorithms
3HRBehavioralA 30-minute round on projects and how they could be extended, weaknesses with examples, recall of the pre-placement presentation, motivation for Qualcomm and willingness to relocate.Covered: Behavioral, Past projects

Intern

Outcome not shared

Internship. 2 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-11

1Online examOnline assessmentSixty questions in three negatively-marked 30-minute sections: quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, and data interpretation with verbal.Covered: Aptitude
2Technical interviewTechnicalA broad round starting with introduction and projects, then OOP basics, linked-list loop length and intersection, duplicates in an array, mutex versus semaphore, process versus thread, deadlock conditions, fragmentation examples, reimplementing a memory copy routine, stack and queue basics, function pointers, distinguishing shared from private data in threads, basic TCP client-server architecture and sorting complexity.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Operating systems, Concurrency, Networking, OOP

Software engineer (intern plus full time campus offer)

Received an offer

Internship. 3 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Aptitude testOnline assessmentSixty aptitude questions with negative marking. The author attempted 48 and skipped anything they were unsure of.Covered: Aptitude
2Technical interviewTechnicalA roughly 90-minute conversational round on background and project work, then linked-list reversal explained verbally rather than written, and a full stack implementation with questions on what a stack is and where it is used.Covered: Past projects, Data structures & algorithms
3HRBehavioralScenario-based questions plus resume-driven curiosity, with the author noting they prepared several questions of their own to ask back.Covered: Behavioral, Conflict handling

Engineer (campus)

Outcome not shared

New grad. 2 rounds. Shared by GeeksforGeeks contributor (handle not shown) on gfg, 2025-07-23

1Technical panelPanelA short panel that mixed reflective questions about other interviews the candidate had failed and how they handled rejection with technical asks: swapping two numbers without a temporary, deleting a node from a binary tree, drawing and explaining a computer's block diagram, and process states.Covered: Behavioral, Data structures & algorithms, Operating systems
2HRBehavioralIntroduction, strengths and weaknesses, project discussion, preferred location and family background.Covered: Behavioral, Past projects

SDE-1

Received an offer

Experienced. 2 rounds. Shared by Sarthak Agarwal on blog, 2022-03-01

1Technical interviewTechnicalA 60-minute face-to-face scheduled by the recruiter that mixed a practical scripting task (extracting a network interface's IP address on Linux in Python, expecting regex and string-search comfort) with a backtracking board-placement problem.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Operating systems, Arrays & strings
2System designSystem designAnother 60-minute round the next day asking the candidate to design an IP location tracker, with the author noting vertical and horizontal scaling, caching, design patterns and data modelling as the areas that mattered.Covered: System design, Scalability, API design

QA engineer

Not selected

New grad. 3 rounds. Shared by Aryan Kant on blog, 2022-08-22

1Online coding assessmentOnline assessmentA 90-minute remote coding test built around an in-place array deduplication problem.Covered: Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms
2Technical interviewTechnicalA 50-minute face-to-face round with a grid word-search problem.Covered: Arrays & strings, Graphs
3Technical interviewTechnicalA short 30-minute round with a first-missing-positive style array problem that the candidate could not finish in time, which ended the process.Covered: Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms

SDE-1 (campus)

Received an offer

New grad. 4 rounds. Shared by Anonymous (Code360 submission) on blog, 2021-08-17

1Online assessmentOnline assessmentA 60-minute MCQ test of 45 questions split evenly between C programming, aptitude and CS fundamentals, taken by about 300 students from the author's college.Covered: Aptitude, Arrays & strings, Operating systems, DBMS, Networking
2Technical panelPanelA 125-minute round with two senior interviewers that opened on a puzzle, then grilled the candidate on their contribution to projects, how they picked up new technologies and what went wrong, before a string-compression coding problem solved with a two-pointer approach and an OS question on semaphores.Covered: Puzzles, Past projects, Arrays & strings, Operating systems
3Technical interviewTechnicalA 60-minute round with two interviewers on project-driven database concepts including triggers and concurrency control, a run through sorting algorithms, and coding merge sort.Covered: DBMS, SQL, Data structures & algorithms
4HRBehavioralA ten-minute chat on preferred location and role, plus an ask to explain a technical concept to schoolchildren, prompted by a hobby listed on the resume.Covered: Behavioral

Software Engineer

Received an offer

New grad, via HackerRank. 4 rounds. Shared by Girish Thatte on youtube

1Online AssessmentOnline assessmentThree timed sections (20 questions each): aptitude/quantitative reasoning, C/C++ programming MCQs on pointers, storage classes and OOP concepts, and CS fundamentals covering OS (paging, threading, mutexes, semaphores) plus DSA (linked lists, bit manipulation, sorting, trees). Negative marking applied.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, OOP, Operating systems, Domain knowledge
2Technical Interview 1TechnicalResume and project walkthrough (including prior Oracle industry experience), then C concepts (structure padding/alignment), a probability puzzle, a bit-manipulation problem (reverse a bit stream), and OS/architecture questions on synchronization, mutex vs semaphore, and choosing an optimal thread count for a pipelined function scenario. Lasted about 50-55 minutes.Covered: Past projects, Data structures & algorithms, Operating systems, Concurrency
3Technical Interview 2TechnicalResume and favorite-subjects discussion, a C pointer output question, deep OS coverage (mutex/semaphore differences, race conditions, context switching, inode structure, paging, virtual memory), networking (TCP/UDP, IPv4, error detection), and a challenging constrained system-design scenario around election vote counting.Covered: Operating systems, Networking, System design, Past projects
4HR InterviewBehavioralBrief roughly 10-minute HR round on relocation willingness, team flexibility and location preferences, ending with candidate questions. Felt like a formality after a strong technical recommendation.Covered: Behavioral

Software Engineer (Windows video driver)

Received an offer

Experienced. 4 rounds. Shared by Bosscoder Academy on youtube

1Technical Interview 1TechnicalDSA coding at medium-to-hard level (linked lists, arrays, trees), C/C++ fundamentals and memory allocation, a bit of Python, design patterns (singleton), plus OS and OOP fundamentals and some networking tied to the candidate's prior networking role.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, OOP, Operating systems, Networking, Low-level design
2Technical Interview 2TechnicalHeld right after the first round. Deep project discussion (including a demoed web project and prior networking-company work), heavy C programming focus, more DSA coding, and a bit of Python.Covered: Past projects, Data structures & algorithms, OOP
3Technical Interview 3TechnicalRole-specific domain questions on video coding/encoding for Windows drivers, design patterns, and an in-depth locks/semaphores discussion with follow-ups on every answer, plus two DSA coding questions (linked list and arrays) and OOP's four pillars. Ran over its planned one hour.Covered: Domain knowledge, Low-level design, Concurrency, Data structures & algorithms, OOP
4Hiring Manager ChatHiring managerAn informal conversation with the eventual manager about team work culture, day-to-day responsibilities and work-life balance rather than a graded round. Signaled a likely offer.Covered: Domain knowledge

IMS Software Engineer

Received an offer

Experienced, Bengaluru, India. 6 rounds. Shared by Kathan Vakharia on youtube

1Day 1 Round 1: C and Bit ManipulationTechnicalTested basic C knowledge and an easy bit-manipulation question similar to shifting bits from one end to the other.Covered: Domain knowledge, Arrays & strings
2Day 1 Round 2: Bit Manipulation and Linked ListTechnicalEasy-to-medium bit manipulation with hexadecimal tricks, then standard linked-list questions (reversal, cycle detection, finding the loop start).Covered: Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms
3Day 1 Round 3: Problem SolvingTechnicalStarted with basic number-theory/array questions (e.g. finding a missing number in a range) and ended with a harder greedy, interval-style story problem that took the most time. Solved with one hint.Covered: Arrays & strings, Data structures & algorithms
4Day 2 Round 1: Systems ThinkingTechnicalTaken by the eventual manager. Instead of asking questions, gave resume keywords and asked the candidate to formulate and solve their own problems, probing whether ML could be applied to networking domains.Covered: System design, Domain knowledge, Past projects
5Day 2 Round 2: Recursion and ProjectsTechnicalA medium recursion/stack-manipulation question plus discussion of resume projects.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Past projects
6Day 2 Round 3: Culture FitBehavioralShort 10-15 minute culture-fit round confirming comfort with five-day work-from-office.Covered: Behavioral

Senior Engineer

Received an offer

Experienced. 4 rounds. Shared by Madhuri MSM on youtube

1Communications TechnicalTechnicalFocused on 4G/communications: protocols, call flows, VoLTE, issue resolution and battery/power optimization scenarios from the candidate's day-to-day work.Covered: Domain knowledge
2Chipset TechnicalTechnicalQuestions on Qualcomm chipsets: underlying features, how the chip works, and internal functioning during phone boot-up.Covered: Domain knowledge
3Tools and CodingTechnicalCovered internal Qualcomm test tools with some coding and debugging. The candidate (a test engineer) found this the weakest round.Covered: Domain knowledge
4HR BehavioralBehavioralBehavioral fit within the Qualcomm ecosystem plus salary expectations and negotiation.Covered: Behavioral

Software Development Engineer

Received an offer

Experienced. 3 rounds. Shared by Ashish Kumar on youtube

1Technical (DSA + CS)TechnicalTwo DSA problems (an easy linked-list question and a stack question) plus CS-fundamentals questions, mostly computer networks with some OS and OOP.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Networking, Operating systems, OOP
2Technical (DSA + CS)TechnicalOne hard but standard LeetCode-style problem (solved with a two-heaps/multiset approach) plus more CS-subject questions on networks and OS. Held the same day as round 1.Covered: Data structures & algorithms, Networking, Operating systems
3ManagerialHiring managerA low-level-design question, more CS-subject questions, and a discussion of the candidate's prior work experience at Synopsys.Covered: Low-level design, Past projects, Operating systems, Networking

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