Interview After 3 Long Years in TCS

My life had been great in TCS. I worked with some of the finest talent in the company. Our fourteen member team which finally reduced to five was the best group of talented people I ever came across. But like every good thing it has to come to its end. My last teammate was leaving the company, one was going to Switzerland and it was the perfect time for me to fly.

So, in this blog I will try to explain my interview process at four companies and how I landed in Metricstream.  I have a JAVA profile with experience in oracle, one build tool and some UI and little bit of frameworks like spring, struts with 2 years and 8 months of experience.

a)      Manhattan Associates: I was receiving lot of emails from Manhattan Associates and I knew about the company as one of my college senior was working there. I have heard positive reviews from him. I attended the interview process through some consulting company. First round was a written test with all the questions from core java. The questions are more like SCJP level. They called me on the next week for F2F.The next round was again from core java. The topics they mostly asked was interface, abstraction, OOPS, exception handling. The level of questions was mostly simple but they were also looking for the zeal/enthusiasm for coding. They announced the results after 10 minutes and I moved to next round without further delay. The next round was also similar with inclusion of arraylist, hashmaps, comparator, comparable and some sql questions. The results again came in 10 minutes and I moved to final round. This round was taken by a project manager. He asked some good puzzles. The level of puzzles was not very difficult and he was more interested in how I reached to the solution than actual solution. He asked me the implementation of ArrayList. This was the only unsettling question I faced on that day. The project manager was helpful and he helped me to get through the implementation. I wrote some pseudo code for the same and I knew he was satisfied with it. The result was again not different and I was selected. The next round was HR which was supposed to be to negotiate salary and benefits. However, to my surprise, she asked me about Manhattan Associates and more about the company. I wished I could have known at least one or two lines but like a shameless brat I was trying to control my smile in front of her. I don’t know why, but I still find these questions very funny, believe me hardly anyone gives a **** about M&A. I was looking for some good work and money like most of guys. The question itself was redundant and she was looking at me like it I made a big blunder. Finally the best part came and she asked me that how much I want. I said its X(more on X later). The look on her face like I have insulted a pope in France. But I hold on to my ground. I was naïve at that time, I didn’t even ask her for an offer letter, I don’t remember speaking much, she said to me she will revert to me later. After 15 days, I got a call from her saying X-50K will be the final offer and they will only send that offer only if I verbally confirm my joining. 

b)      Oracle Finance Solutions: I was from TCS Bancs and Oracle Finacle was a rival product. The interview call was not a surprise. The HR was nice as she belonged from the same school. The questions were again mostly from core java. Somehow the interview was not going well. The interviewer was also inexperienced and he was looking for a specific answer, not explanation. I kept trying to give more explanations for my answers irrespective whether it was right or wrong.Suddenly he asked me the difference between application server and web server and I had no clue about it, at least at that time. I thought this was it and I am done for the day. But I guess, in the hindsight, he liked my enthusiasm for the job, interest in finacle, so he selected me. The second round was completely different. The project manager, looked at the word FAC in my resume and he asked me about it. I explained him everything about Functional Access Control, then class diagram and then how we implemented in our product. I came to know, they were also doing the same thing but with different set of technologies. We were working on SWT/MyBatis and they wanted JavaFX/Eclipse Top link. The Project Manager started to explain me the project and we all know that only happens when interviewee is selected. The HR round was telephonic and this time I was more prepared. The offer letter came after few days and it was X-.75K. She told me that I will get some good bonus, brand value of Oracle and lots of pros. I also came to know that Oracle FS is definitely not Oracle and it’s more like a service based company.  I reluctantly accepted the offer letter as I needed something concrete to put my papers in the current company. However, quite understandably I was unhappy with the decision. The job hunt was on and then I landed on Mindtree and IBS Software. I attended Mindtree in the morning but thought of again working for a service based company was irritating from inside. It grew to such an extent that I ran after lunch and landed on the reception of IBS, ITPL.

c)       IBS, ITPL: The presence of IBS was somewhat different. The office was small, only one floor, if I remember correctly. There were lots of people queued up for the interview in the reception area and everyone looked more experienced and prepared than me. I knew I was late and was prepared to make some silly excuse at reception. The first thing they asked me that what my experience was. I replied and then they said it’s only for 3 years and above. I can leave directly. Well, I didn’t leave Mindtree, just to hear this. I told the receptionist, I am from the C.S. background and if you consider the fact that I am doing little bit of programming from first year, then the combined experience was way more than the eligibility criteria. The line struck a chord with him and he allowed me to sit for the interview. The first round was written and all the questions were from core java SCJP level. I cleared 8/10 and moved to next round quite comfortably. The interview was a pleasant one as the same interview questions started to repeat. I was also more prepared and this was technically my fourth interview. The interviewer asked me questions from core java, then hoped to oracle, then to spring, little bit of exception handling ,validations in spring MVC, and then back to comparator and comparable. The interview went on for 40 minutes and he covered almost every topic. It was more like a dream round and at the end he made it clear that I am selected. The next round was more like a formality. The project manager took the next round, and he was more interested in other things rather than programming skills. The good thing about him that he was the first guy who actually explained me about the company and then the project. He told me something in 2015  which I still remember that the future of the technology lies in tablets and cell phones. The days of desktop apps are over, the sooner anyone realize it the better. They wanted me to recruit for one of such applications which were to be converted tablets and smart phones. But things again got hay wired when I told him I need ‘X’ as salary. Since I liked the job description and didn’t want to repeat what happened at Manhattan, I told him (and to myself) that X-25K will also do fine. He noted down all the numbers in my resume. As I was mentally prepared to accept the offer letter, I again got a call from one consultancy. The guy told me about Metricstream and to my reluctance he convinced me to attend the interview process.  And few days later I got the offer letter from IBS but before that Metricstream happened. And here is how it happened.

d)       Metricstream: Well this was an interview that I will never forget or would ever want to forget. First of all I was late and then I forgot to bring the resume. I tried printing the resume near the office, but to my bad luck there was no such printing press. It took me half an hour to finally find one, and he said there was no power. So finally I reached there at 11 am, 1 hour late and of course without the resume.  There was a guy who was managing the interview process; he also looked to be a new joinee.  You can always figure a new joinee by their extra politeness, lacking self confidence and the way they try to hide that lacking self confidence.  He gave me a small set of questionnaire and to my surprise most of the questions from Maths. Yes Maths!!. Since, I have prepared for CAT for some time in my college days, I knew my apti was good and it didn’t let me down on that day too. I came to know that I correctly answered 9/10 (including the one answer which I searched from internet). The second round was taken by MTS (equivalent to a software engineer). He asked me questions basically from core java, few math problems again and then one or two simple puzzles. The question set was really cool and then he explained me how Metricstream is a cool place to be technology wise. He talked me through about the company for another five minutes. It is important to note that the interviewer only takes the pain to explain these things only when the interviewee is selected. I have been a part of many interviews and yet to see any exception to this. The guy who was managing the interview told me that I have moved to third round. The third round was taken by a team lead and he appeared very dominating. He started with some tricky questions in core java. I answered most of them correctly but I knew something was not going correctly. Then he asked me to write the sample code of how a jsp page gets converted into a servlet. I miserably failed at this question, I completely forget the syntax of writing a servlet and to override the mandatory functions. Then he read the “hibernate” word on my resume as asked me specifically that did I know or have just written it?  I said the same thing which people before me would have said and will continue to say in future. I try to act calmly and said “yes”. Then the first thing he asked me to write an example of many-to-many mapping. Then how to map a foreign key in hibernate and then inverse mapping. Well, I said to him since I have not used many-to-many mapping anywhere, I don’t know the answer and other are the follow up questions. So in short I know Nothing. To be honest, I still don’t use many-to-many mapping in hibernate/JPA, I have a strict aversion to them for my own reasons but I didn’t want to make my interview more miserable by discussing this philosophy. Then he read the word “responsive” from my resume. And again he asked do I really know it? I again said calmly “yes”. I could see the smile on his face. The interview duration went more than 30 minutes by now and he must had been sure to accept/reject me but I hated at the thought that he was simply toying with me. He made me write one sample web page with responsive feature and then I explained him every single css line of code patiently. And all he said it’s completely wrong. I had lost all the hope by now, then he again started asking more questions from core java. The interview ended after 15 more minutes. As I was getting ready to call the cab and leave, the guy told me I was selected and one more ‘final’ round was waiting for me. I was literally exhausted and surprised by this result and was perplexed by the thought of what’s Next. I didn’t expect Metricstream ( a company I never heard of) interview to be this difficult. The next interview was taken by a project manager. He started the interview by asking one puzzle. I somehow gave him the semi correct result but he was not fully satisfied. Then he asked me a thing or two about auditing, versioning and how to track the system in case of power failure. How to monitor a system, when a person deposit the money, but the power gets cut before the system can generate the ticket. And how to recover from such conditions. It was an open ended questions and I explained him the various checks that should be done. The interview got over in around 20 minutes and I had mixed feelings about it. Within 5 minutes the guy happily told me that I cleared the interview and I just need to clear the HR round. It was 4 pm in the evening and I was completely exhausted, I didn’t even bothered to ask him anything. The guy again came after 5 minutes, he took me to one of the cabins and said that currently there was no HR and he will complete the formality. Jesus Christ!! No HR. Yes, that was the first good thing I heard in the entire day. He frankly asked me how much I want. I think that’s the most pertinent question one should ask. I said X-20K. He asked if I am holding any other offer, I replied in positive and told him clearly that I have already made my mind to join IBS and waiting for the offer letter for the same. Thinking about the same day, any HR would have been angry after what I said to him and I wonder I would say the same thing to any other HR. But it happened and then the guy for the first time in the day, took incharge of the things and asked me How much I exactly want? I asked me my dream X and he said its doable but I have to make promise with him that I will join. I got the offer letter on the same day at 7 pm and I accepted the offer. By now I have attended many interviews and I made my mind to join Metricstream based on only two reasons:

• The interview process: The reason is simple. We all learn from our colleagues and seniors. The interviewers were toughest which also suggest that all the people working in the organization were of the same level.

• The process was fastest. From Attending interview to clearing five rounds and getting the offer letter and make me accept the offer letter, everything took merely 8 hours. I can see that there was a passion in the employees. The reason of passion was unknown to me but its existence was vivid.

• I finally got ‘X’. Apart from the number, the simple fact made me happy that I know my worth better than all the HRs of the reputed companies I went so far.

And that’s how I joined Metricstream Infotech, AMR Tech Park, Bangalore.

My Life in TCS Part-2

Hi Friends,
This article is in continuation of mylifeintcs.blogger.com. I had the pleasure of working in TCS for three amazing years. I moved to small start-up kind of mid range software company(metricstream) two months back. The one word in which metric stream can be defined is vibrant. And if you in any way associated with TCS, it will come to your sense that this word is often used by TCS high level management, particularly by CEO, Chandra.
In this blog I shall move ahead from where I left in my previous blog. Well to be honest I find its quite an arduous task to recollect all those memories withered by time. I was lucky enough in ILP to get Java as a domain and then Bangalore as my base location. It was pure 100% hard coded LUCK. I enjoyed my stay in Trivandrum, I liked the new climate of Trivandrum, sea, beaches, air conditioned office of TCS and lots of cigarettes. I completed my ILP somewhere around October 2012 with a good rating and lots of confidence.I enjoyed my paid honeymoon in Bangalore searching for room, parting with friends, occasional visits to RMG( resource management group, more like HR), preparing for Elitmus and reading newpapers and few novels. Well, there is a cliche "Good times passes really fast" and I came to know this in the chill of December when my Boss shouted on me "boy, this is not a college anymore." I joined a project on December 2012 after a long interview which was arranged for fresher above 4 ratings.

An important thing for freshers that rating above 3 are given better opportunities in getting projects in TCS. One gets a project after a interview whose difficulty level keep varying from project to project.There are three different kinds of projects like Development, Maintenance and Support. As far as I have seen Development project are interesting, challenging and certainly takes more than said 9 hours a day. However,  support projects offers more onsite opportunity along with the facility that a person can prepare for various examinations while working. I can say that now, that lots of my friends are in esteemed IIMs cause they utilized their time while in support projects.

Coming back to the chill of December, I came to know that I joined a development project. It was a small project having a team of six people; 3 freshers, a two year experienced developer, a two year experienced unix guy and a team lead,. A few people joined midway along with the needs. Our unceasing development period continued for eight months without any break, Our daily working hours were around 11 hours minus one hour break for tea-coffee lunch. That was the routine for six days a week and it went on for eight more painstaking months. I learned a lot in these eight months Java,struts 1.3, javascript, html, css positioning, oracle. Sitting down here and looking behind these years, I fail to recollect those exact moments. However, my back pain, which I developed while working on those long hours,still reminds me that the past was real.
I developed very strong bond with my teammates and especially with the team lead during those painstaking hours. I guess its only because of that, my lead still calls me from USA. Our project was praised at various levels, people lauded on our collective team work, one senior person was literally amazed by the amount of work we had achieved in such a short time, in-spite of all that, our project never saw the light of day and it ended in GIT like most of the internal development projects of TCS.