SDE-1 Interview Experience of VISA?

I recently went through the interview process of VISA for Software Engineer.

Job Profile – Software Engineer

Location – Bangalore

The hiring process was as follows –

First Round (Online Coding Round) – 2 hours

  • 4 coding questions on Recursion, BST, Number arithmetic and simple adhoc.

  • 3 were easy and 4th was a bit tricky but solvable.

  • Top 40 from the coding round made to the face to face interviews.

I cleared this round and then received mail for Interview rounds. The interview rounds were as follows:

First Interview (Technical) – 30 minutes

  • First, she asked me to tell her about myself and give a quick introduction.

  • My biggest achievement in studies after coming to college.

  • Why did I choose Android development ( in response to my answer in the previous question)

  • Two technical questions

  1. We have a database in the form of a table that has some defined columns and numerous rows each having information about a person. The columns were the name, the department number to which he belongs, a unique ID, DOB, salary, etc.
    Then she asked me to suggest a data structure to store all the information such that given a department number, I need to output the information of all the people who belong to it.
    (Hint – Use an Array of pointers to structure).

  2. Given a set of a large number of strings and a function that tells the lexicographical order between two given strings, suggest a data structure that sorts this set of strings with the least complexity.
    (Hint - Using Array of pointers).

Second Interview (Technical) – 1 hour

It started off on a light note. The interviewer asked me to describe my college. My strengths and weaknesses. Any social work done by me in college. Then we moved on to technical questions.

  • What is a Data Structure? Types of data structures.

  • Can a structure point to itself?

  • What is it called? (After a Yes)

  • Which is better, an array of pointers or a 2-D Array?

  • Difference between a Mutex and a Semaphore.

  • Difference between Memset and Memcopy.

After looking at my projects, he asked me why I chose Android Application development.
How do I prepare an application (he wanted to know the description like Waterfall Model)?

Afterwards he picked one of my applications and asked the following questions :

  • What is different in the application?

  • The problems faced.

  • How did I test the application?

  • Did I use any Encryption technique in the application?

  • Did I make any application for iOS? What language is used?

Then he moved on to some general questions like :

  • Why did I want to join VISA? After listening to my answer, he again asked me to tell him something that shows my want to join VISA.

  • If I have to choose one department if I get selected, what will that be (among programming, web, android development, data structures, etc.)?

  • How much important is money to me?

  • How excited my family is about the company.

At the end of this round, he asked me a puzzle – How many times do the hour and minute hands cross each other in 24 hours?

Third Interview (HR) – 30 minutes

  • He asked me to tell him about my family.

  • How much do I know about Bangalore?

  • He looked at my project and asked some basic questions which were not very technical.

  • If I join VISA then what will I want to change about or add to its present system/infrastructure?

  • My hobbies.

  • Some discussion on football (in response to my answer regarding hobbies).

  • How do I spend my weekends?

End Result

The interviews were not one of the hardest and could easily be tackled. They made me an offer for Software Engineer.