Internship interview experience — Red Hat
Hello! I gave the interview(Online) at Red Hat for the position of an SWE intern and was selected for the same to be a part of the Red Hat Gluster Storage team. It was a moderate difficulty level interview, but it might vary from team to team and the questions/subjects of the interview can also vary. I really apologize that I can’t remember the coding round questions, but would suggest that if you practice some competitive coding you won’t face any difficulty.
The interview had 5 rounds — 2 Online tests(Coding, Aptitude), 2 Technical Interviews, 1 Managerial Round.
All the rounds were elimination round.
Round 1 — Online Test(Coding, Aptitude)
The first round of the selection process was a coding test of the duration of 2 hours that took place on the MyAnatomy platform and consisted of 5 aptitude questions and 3 coding questions. The aptitude section had a duration of 30mins and the coding section was given a duration of 1hour 30mins.
The aptitude questions looked easy, but that too depends upon your practice!. The coding questions were easy-moderate, I don’t exactly remember the questions but what I can say is that if you have your concepts clear and good hands-on practice in coding you will be able to do all of them.
I was able to do all of them and got 100% 😅 (Don’t Compare!!)
Round 2 — Online Test(Coding)
The second round of the selection process was again a coding test, but this time it was for only 1hour 30min and had 3 coding questions on the same platform, MyAnatomy.
The questions in this round were moderate and require you to have good logic solving ability and come with a solution. This round requires you to have a better side of your coding ability, if you practice competitive coding you will be able to do them.
Now, something interesting and scary happened to me in this round😆. It is not related to the test, but it might help you if something similar happens to you too.
The online tests are proctored and you are not allowed to switch tabs, I didn’t do either 😔. But, my bad luck and my wonderful windows PC caused me this trouble. I was marked a RED flag by the MyAnatomy platform because I switched applications in between the tests. I had to because of the windows expiry message popping up again and again! But, as I was honest and confident enough I addressed this issue to the HR who was responsible for the selction process and she had it checked up with the backened team at MyAnatomy and I was given a clean sheet! 😉
Round 3, 4 — Technical Interview
Now for me, this was the time when I started becoming a bit nervous, anyone would be! These rounds are taken by someone from the team itself of which you are gonna be part of.
As GlusterFS is built on C, so the questions asked to me was mostly on DSA and OS. But, it can and will vary from team to team for which you are interviewing. So prepare accordingly!
I was asked questions mostly on DSA which consisted of linked lists, trees, graphs, sorting, time complexity, and all. Also, a few questions from OS regarding deadlock, job scheduling, memory management. The questions were easy to moderate and the difficulty increased gradually :p
In the first round of technical interviews, the questions asked were more theoretical and less hands-on coding (just the logic/function). But, in the second round, it was the opposite 😆. The coding questions were like implementing a linked list, queue using both array and linked list in the first round.
The second round was more of a logical one. I was first given a question to solve then asked about the complexity and then improve/reduce the time complexity for that! Woof!
Finally, I was through to the next round, though I made a few mistakes and gave one or 2 wrong answers!
Round 5— Managerial Round
This is the final round of the process and was taken by the manager under whom you are gonna work. This is mostly non-technical but can be a bit tricky. You are mostly questions about how you would handle situations, lead the team, act on a given situation. Some conceptual questions related to technical but not direct can be asked too.
In simple words, you are assessed whether or not you will be a good fit for the Red Hat CULTURE and a worthy contributor to the team!
I was informed later on the same day itself, that I was through and I am SELECTED for the internship. Yeaaaa!
Hopefully, this helps anyone and everyone who is preparing for the internship at Red Hat and will be benefitted from it in clearing your interviews and grab an internship offer at Red Hat!
Thank You!
