Teradata Interview Experience - Software Engineer

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— Kshitiz

Hi, I recently attended the interview rounds for the role of Software Engineer at Teradata. I found the entire journey to be quite hard and comprised of five major rounds. A brief summary provided here will help you get an idea of the preparation.

Round 1: Resume Screening

I applied for this role through the official careers portal of Teradata. The job description of the profile was focused on software development using Python programming language, implementing unit test cases for the same using PyTest and adding on skill requirements regarding database concepts and production deployment. I had a fair understanding and relevant experience for the above-mentioned tech stack so post two days after the application I got a call from one of the HR that my CV would be forwarded to the respective manager for screening. The next day the resume got shortlisted and a technical discussion round was scheduled.

Round 2: Technical Interview I

There were total three panelists and each of them kept asking questions one by one. The discussion began with individual introductions, followed by an understanding of my past work experience and projects. Post that I was given a couple of coding problems for which they asked me to write end-to-end code on the go, execute it, run multiple test cases, prepare a parametrized unit test case file for the code, and execute the same with the use of fixtures. Here is the list of coding problems and other theoretical questions that were asked:

1. Given a string with brackets, I was asked to write a method that will return some substrings based on the given input conditions. I was able to write the logic using Stack data structure.
2. Design the recursion tree to generate the power set of a given input string.
3. How will you use a class object as the key in a dictionary?
4. What are Magical and Dunder methods? Explain with the help of an example using generators.
5. A brief discussion on data modeling and CI/CD.

Round 3: Technical Interview II

The second technical discussion happened with an onshore person and it was majorly focused on the logical and thinking capacity regardless of writing a bug-free code. I was initially asked to speak about the points uncovered in the CV and then was given a sample problem and the discussion went on around it based on the following topics:

1. Edge cases of the logic and implementing corresponding validations
2. Data types used and memory allocation
3. In-built language exceptions and how to raise them
4. Code readability in terms of naming conventions, comments, and indentation
5. Discussion on microservice architecture, decoupling mechanisms, and messaging queue

Round 4: Managerial Interview

In this discussion too I was asked multiple technical questions though they were quite basic and theoretical. Post that some behavioral questions were fired at me:

1. Would you take the snippet from Stackoverflow if you found a solution for a given problem?
2. What steps would you take for code approval in a production environment?
3. Tell me a real problem that you single-handedly resolved in your past work experience.
4. You mistakenly messed up a few moments before the product updates were supposed to be live. How will you handle this?
5. What is your reaction if your suggested inputs and approaches are not included in the product development?

Round 5: HR Interview

This was the final step of the recruitment process and it began by asking the reason why was I looking for a job change. Additionally, the discussion revolved around my preferred location and salary expectations. The HR also gave me a fair understanding of the position and roles of this designation. Once the discussion was done and no further questions were there, I was told to wait for further steps and within a week I was offered the respective position.

Just for guidance, I recommend you not to wait for the right time. Start preparations from Day 1. Always be confident and optimistic. I appreciate your patience for reading my experience and I hope it was of some benefit to you. I also thank Medium to provide such a knowledgeable platform. Thanks for being here. Thanks again for spending those precious couple of minutes of yours reading the article. For any query or suggestion please feel free to reach out.