Interview Experience – Siemens | SDE Intern 🚀
1. Company and Role
Company: Siemens Digital Industries Software – Mendix
Role: SDE / Software Engineering Intern 🙋
Batch/Year of Graduation: 2027🎓
Branch: Computer Science Engineering 🖥️
2. Application Process
How did you apply?
On-Campus recruitment process through PICT.
Shortlisting Criteria for OA
For our batch, the eligibility criteria were:
- CGPA: 8.0+
- 10th: 80%+
- 12th: 80%+
Online Assessment (OA)
The OA consisted of 22 MCQs, divided into two sections:
- 11 Aptitude questions
- 11 Programming & CS Fundamentals questions
The programming section covered C, C++, Java, OOP, DSA, and other programming fundamentals.
There were no SQL questions and no dedicated coding-based DSA section in our OA.
Note: Siemens changes its OA pattern every year, so this pattern should only be considered as a reference for our batch.
Interview Shortlisting
Around 70–80 students were shortlisted for the interview process conducted on campus.
Separately, around 15–20 students were called for interviews at the Siemens office for the Mendix department. I was one of those 15–20 candidates.
All my interview rounds were conducted at the Siemens office, not on campus.
3. Interview Rounds 👾
Round 1: Technical Interview
Type: Technical + Coding + Project Discussion
Duration: ~1 hour 15 minutes
Interviewers: 2 🥶
Location: Siemens Office
Description 😪:
This was a detailed technical interview covering DSA, projects, DBMS, Computer Networks, WebRTC, and other CS fundamentals.
The interview did not follow a fixed order. The interviewers kept switching between topics based on my answers and often went several levels deeper into a particular concept.
Questions asked :
1. Longest Substring Without Repeating Characters
Find the longest substring without repeating characters and print both the substring and its length.
The problem/example was based on GeeksforGeeks. I solved it using the sliding-window approach and explained the approach and complexity.
2. Employee Sorting
An Employee class was given with:
- ID
- Name
- Salary
The requirement was to sort employees by salary, and if salaries were equal, sort by name.
little twist was that the Object of the class were dynamic .
I solved it completely and explained the comparator logic, pseudocode, dry run, and complexity.
3. AVL Tree – LR and RR Rotation
I was asked to implement AVL Tree insertion involving LR and RR rotations.
This was asked because I had an AVL Tree Visualizer project on my resume.
As a follow-up, I was asked about another tree with similar balancing behaviour. I mentioned the Red-Black Tree, after which I was asked about its class structure.
Project Discussion
The interviewers went deep into my projects and asked questions beyond the basic implementation.
For my AVL Tree Visualizer, I was asked:
"How are the coordinates fixed after a rotation?"
I explained the coordinate recalculation logic and wrote pseudocode for it.
Computer Networks / WebRTC
Questions included:
- NAT
- STUN
- TURN
- ICE Candidates
- Internal working of WebRTC
- How video calling happens in the backend
- 1-to-1 video calling
- Group video calling
- SFU vs MCU
- Scaling group video calls
- How Stream SDK works
DBMS
I was asked to rate myself in DBMS out of 5.
I was then asked to draw an ER diagram for one of my projects, including as many relevant DBMS concepts as possible. I had practiced the ER diagram beforehand, so I was able to explain it comfortably.
Difficulty Level : Medium to Hard🤧
My Experience 😊:
One thing I found interesting was that the interviewers sometimes asked about concepts that I had not specifically encountered before. They were interested in seeing how I reasoned when I didn't immediately know something.
My biggest takeaway from this round was that knowing your project superficially is not enough. If something is mentioned on your resume, be prepared to explain how it works internally.
Round 2: Technical + HR Interview
Type: Technical + HR
Duration: ~45 minutes
Interviewers: 3 🥶
Location: Siemens Office
Description:
The second round was a combination of technical and HR discussion. The technical part again focused on problem-solving, CS fundamentals, React, and projects.
Example Questions:
HashMap
- How does HashMap work internally?
- How are key-value pairs stored and accessed?
Two Sum
- A variation of the Two Sum problem was asked.
- I was asked to reason about the approach and solve it.
React
- Various React concepts were discussed because React was part of my project tech stack.
Projects
There was a detailed discussion about my projects, including:
- Technologies used
- Implementation
- Design decisions
- How different components work together
- Project-specific concepts
HR Discussion
The round also included HR-related questions along with the technical discussion.
Difficulty Level: Medium 🤧
My Experience:
The second round was more conversational than the first one, but it still had a significant technical focus. The interviewers continued to test whether I actually understood the technologies and concepts mentioned in my resume.
4. Overall Experience and Tips
Overall Interview Experience:🤸
Overall, the interview experience was challenging but very valuable.
The most important aspect of the process was the depth of questioning. The interviewers didn't just check whether I could solve a problem or define a concept. They often followed up with questions about why it works, how it works internally, and what happens in different scenarios.
The interviews also tested how well I could handle concepts that were unfamiliar to me.
Verdict: Selected ✅ 🕺
Around 15–20 candidates were part of the Siemens office interview process for the Mendix department. After the complete process, 3 candidates were finally selected, and I was one of them.
