Breakthrough Package

Breakthrough Package

Thank you for providing the details. Here's a set of questions based on the information you shared:


Q: Congratulations on your impressive placement! Can you share your experience as an SDE Intern at Giant Eagle? What were your responsibilities and key takeaways from the internship?


Ans: Giant Eagle visited our campus in September 2022 for full-time hiring and 8 students got campus placement. They were offering immediate hiring from October only. Though I had other offers like Paytm but since it didn't have an internship opportunity I joined Giant Eagle for a 7-month internship program.

key takeaways are:

1. real-world industry experience is very much more important than the coding we do in our college. It teaches how you maintain code quality and how to work with a team.

2. need of refactoring the code while working with a team. When I did my first code push I still remember that I had to do 6 multiple iterations before my code get merged with the main code in the industry.

3. you learn about new technologies and tools. At Giant Eagle, I have to do backend development in a different language and two months after I did frontend development in react native which I had to first learn after 4 months, of working on the front end I became a full-stack developer.


Q: Could you tell us about your college journey and how it contributed to your success in securing such a lucrative placement? 

Ans: I agree that colleges play a major role in deciding your placement but what matters the most is the peer group in which you learn. As you might have seen, good placements are happening in tier 3 colleges which is because of the peer group they made in the beginning only. Like I joined college in 2019 and in my first year I focused on C language. Later I found a peer group of 4 - 5 people who were interested in competitive coding. In my second semester only I covered data structures, which is taught in 3rd semester, through various sources and youtube so that I can start competitive coding from 2nd year. And today there a various opportunities like off-campus placements, contests on CodeChef and codeforces directly organized by companies where they even offer hiring. There are exams like InfyTQ organized all over India, and TCS CodeVita, an exam organized by Trilogy Innovations which can give you placements and internship opportunities regardless of which college you belong to. I got my first offer in my 6th sem for a Power Programmer role by InfyTQ. It provides a Support Engineer role after clearing the level 1 interview with a 3.6 LPA and Power Programmer role after clearing the level 2 interview with a 9.5 LPA. I also got an interview opportunity from TCS codeVita with a 179/2-lakh global rank in 2nd round.


Q: How did you balance your academic commitments and extracurricular activities with your preparations for placements and internships? Any specific strategies you employed to manage your time effectively?

Ans: Our first year went through covid and lockdown but I got lots of time to focus on coding and exploring development. I gave less focus on online classes at that time which I regret now because it lowered my CGPA. Then in my 2nd year, I learned Java, spring, and spring boot. I have also made a few projects on backend development. Talking about academics I think students can prepare their syllabus 2 weeks before exams and in between these exams they get 2-3 months each semester when they can do web/android development, ML, participate in open source, take part in hackathons or any other field they want to explore. 

Don't think that only skills matters and not CGPA because it may obstruct certain cases.

The only regret I felt was that I was not allowed to sit in the Placement Drive for a few companies like Combault(32 LPA), and Tekion because of low CPGA. So CGP also matters because it shows the seriousness of the student towards academics and career. Both CGPA backed up with a good skill set are crucial for any student who aspires to grab a handsome package.


Q: Can you talk about the role of the right college choice in shaping your career? How do you think your college, GL Bajaj Institute of Technology and Management, influenced your growth and prepared you for the placement at Giant Eagle? Do you believe that your college played a role in shaping you for this opportunity?

Ans: At GL Bajaj there is a special placement program that is different from other colleges. Just after 2nd year before summer break, they organize a test for all branches to shortlist around 150 students at the cream layer.  Their profiles of CodeChef, codeforces, leetcode, etc are also monitored. Then they provide separate training for those 150 students for a targeted 10+ LPA.

During my time in college had called a mentor from Microsoft who provided training for around 4-4.5 months in starting of 3rd year. His industry experience helped us a lot with placements.

The rest 400-500 students are put in the 2nd batch and the rest in the 3rd batch.

Students in the 150 batch do not have to attend classes. Their attendance is marked when they sit in the lab for coding from 9 AM to around 8 PM every day. This program showed positive results as most of the highest placements were among these 150 students and I was also among those 150.

Therefore, I strongly agree that the right college choice is pivotal because it not only provides you with the right direction but also an adequate environment for your future. 

Be it TIER 3 too, the college strategies do matter a lot.


Q: As a full-stack engineer, you have experience in JavaScript, React, and Java. How did you acquire these skills? Did you pursue any specific courses, certifications, or personal projects to enhance your knowledge in these areas?

Ans: I did Java in 2nd year because I had to do the backend and Java is one of the best languages for it. Almost 70% of companies and big MNCs today are using Java. After that, I did Spring and Spring boot, backend using HQL.


Q: Being a 4-star coder at Codechef, can you tell us about your involvement in competitive coding and how it has influenced your problem-solving abilities and technical skills?

Ans: I started Competitive coding at the beginning of 2nd year on CodeChef on my friend's recommendation. I still remember in the initial contest I could solve only 1 question of easy level out of three. Solving such questions gave me a good knowledge of what CP is. Since I had done DSA in 2nd semester I could see its implementation in CP. I think CP is one of the most important factors for placements because 1st round is generally a coding round. It requires good practice to solve medium to hard-level questions into that period which comes by doing CP only because you get good practice in solving in a time-bound environment. I have done CP for 1 year consistently. I completed 7-8 contests on CodeChef and later I switched to Codeforces as it provide hard-level questions with much more variety. After one year I can say I got an expert rating and then I started focusing on Interview Specific questions on leetcode. I think the expert level is good enough to crack any company's coding round.


Q: Looking back, is there anything you would have done differently during your college journey or placement preparation? Are there any lessons you learned that you want to share with other students aspiring for high-paying placements?

Ans: The only regret I had so far is my low CGPA. I could have made it 8+ if I had given it more attention.

Experience that I can share is that students make a major mistake when they start studying coding, DSA, CP, etc in 3rd year after realizing that the next is the final year. They don't even have their resume after 2nd year. There are a few companies that start hiring after 2nd year to provide internships in 3rd year. So it becomes quite confusing what to do first. You should complete development in 2nd year along with DSA so that you can prepare a decent resume.

So I would suggest Completing development in 2nd year and parallelly you can also do CP as it takes around 7-8 hours a week. Give 3rd for proper practice for CP for around 7 months and then interview questions from leetcode.

It is very important to crack the coding round and I think interviews are much easier than coding rounds. When Intuit came to our college they selected only 10 students in the coding round out of 800 applications and 2 students qualified for interviews. You can see the selection ratio for the coding round is very less. 

Also, interview questions are mostly from leetcode or similar to it but for coding rounds questions are tougher and can be from anywhere.


Q: How did you become aware of Tekion, what sparked your interest in pursuing a placement opportunity with them, and can you describe your experience with the interview process, including any challenging interview rounds or technical assessments, and how you prepared for them?

Ans: Tekion came to our college for hiring 7-8 students but I couldn't qualify for the CGPA round as it was at least 7.5. Fortunately, I attended the pre-placement talk which all companies deliver before starting placement rounds. HR of Tekion was delivering the lecture and she said that Tekion is going to hire 400-500 freshers this time. I knew that our college will recruit 7-8 students and the rest from other colleges like KIIT and ABES Ghaziabad. I found HR's mail id through the ppt and wrote a cold mail. I wrote that I'm interested in joining the opportunity at Tekion, I also wrote about my expert rating at Codeforces and my achievements in TCS CodeVita and the reason why I was not shortlisted. Then she asked for my resume and I was then shortlisted. Then they sent me a link to HackerEarth in which I solved 2+ questions out of 3. There were 3 technical rounds basically out of which 1st two were problem-solving rounds based on DSA and it was completed on the same day in the morning and evening shifts. Then the next week another round was there based on the backend where questions were on HQL and Spring and core Java. It was more about a team fit round, whether you can fit culturally or not and approach a problem. Then a managerial round happened. There were questions like guesstimate questions and puzzles. Then after two weeks, they called me that I had been selected. Now coming to the question, of why I choose Tekion is that it's a good product-based company, and it can provide good exposure as it's a 2017 startup with an evaluation of 3.3B $. Also, the peer group is very good since 40-50% of people are from IITs and NITs which can also remove the tag of tier 3 college. The working culture of startups is very good for providing learning growth. These were the reasons why I choose Tekion. 


Q: Can you share some highlights from your interaction with the recruiters during the placement process? Were there any particular qualities or skills they were looking for in candidates?

Ans: HRs do not give much attention to your projects they give more preference to CP. If your resume has certain achievements like your rank in a hackathon or if you attach your Codeforces profile with a good rating or any other achievement. They just want to make sure that the candidate has good problem-solving skills and will be able to clear their interview. This makes it easier for them to shortlist a candidate.

Talking about my interaction with recruiters, I generally connect with them through LinkedIn. I have a template in which I have added my achievements and internship experience. Around 40-50% of recruiters reply that they are ready to talk further or they don't have an opening right now. Recruiters generally want a guy having a good hold on CP.


Q: How can we project ourselves differently in front of the interviewer? Do you have any tips or techniques to leave a lasting impression and stand out from other candidates during an interview?

Ans: The main skill any interviewer wants to see in you is problem-solving. Apart from this to show yourself differently first thing is your communication skills. It should be good enough to be able to explain the exact approach of problem-solving that you are thinking about. Don't remain silent for longer but keep explaining to them how you are trying to solve the problem. The second thing I would suggest is to explain to the interviewer the brute force for a problem if you cannot provide an optimized solution. Maybe they will provide a hint and you have to catch it to give an optimized solution. They do so because they want to see if you will be stuck at any point in the company, whether you can solve the problem with their hint or not. They try to do little hand-holding but you should be able to move further on your own. The third thing is that you should maintain the code quality so that in the future if someone else will read the code he must understand it. Like the name of variables, function names should be self-defining. Remember that you are writing the code for the company and not for yourself. 


Q: Building a coding culture in ourselves requires a lot of focus. So, I want to ask, what type of content do you categorize as distractions? How do you manage to stay focused on your coding and skill-building journey?

Ans: One of the major distractions is the attractive clickbait that we generally see on youtube like the glorious packages at Google and Amazon, and then students start focusing only on these companies and what if they are not placed in them. So instead of targeting a company focus on problem-solving and such placement-package videos are just a waste of time. You can take important cues from those videos but it’s only you who should create your own “ROADMAP”.  Also, Instagram reels and youtube shorts are just a waste of time. It reduces the concentration time. When you sit for a contest for three hours you need focus, you need to apply multiple DSA concepts and you need practice for it. Stay away from those influencers who teach you complete placement coding in 1.5 or 3 months. Those are just placement-oriented practices whose base is made in nearly 2 years of constant practice. Also, YouTubers are showing you that they have completed CP in three months or mastered codeforces in 3 months but that was his journey. He may be an IITian, he may have good problem-solving skills or he may be a good mathematician or he may have a peer group of problem-solvers. So he can become a master in 3 or 6 months but it is his journey. Don't get demotivated if you could not make it the way they did. So just figure out your actual state, where you want to reach, and the path required in between and take steps accordingly.


Q: How should we manage competitive coding and development? Should we focus on any one of them or both? From your experience, what approach do you find more beneficial for enhancing technical skills and career growth?

Ans: I think you should focus on both of them because without development you cannot make a good resume. You should have a minimum of 3 projects as a fresher. Development is required in hackathons as well. So if you are not from a good college then hackathons are a good opportunity to stand away from the crowd. Like if you have 1000 students in your branch then maybe only 50 students will participate in college hackathons and maybe 20 students will go to other colleges. So even though they are securing a place in the top 12 or 15 teams then also they are getting good exposure to what kind of ideas are brought there. With this, you can share your experience and build a story around it for 5-10 min in front of the interviewer. 

You must understand that before the actual interview, you should prepare your real story to minimize the number of questions they are going to ask you. For example, Include reasons, processes, and impact of the projects you have made. If your interview is of 45 min prepare for 20 minutes at least. This can depict a good personality of yours.


Q: If you receive multiple offers, what factors will you consider in deciding which company to choose? Are there any specific criteria or aspects of the offers that you prioritize while making this decision?

Ans: I think the package is one of the major factors because then later in your career your salary will go in the upper trend only. Second, you should opt for a good product-based company. In service-based suppose the client has given you a project for 1.5 years, then your higher management will ask you to complete it in around 1.3 years and then your manager will ask you to complete it in 1 year so that they can detect faults and suggest changes. This way it becomes a hectic culture sometimes. Also in service-based, you cannot leave before your working hours finish. But product-based companies provide team-specific freedom and your presence matters at the time of need. You and your team also get ownership of the product, your team has the responsibility of the product from starting (design) to its completion phase but in a service based you can be asked to switch to another part of that product. Third is, if you are a fresher you should opt for work from the office because in the beginning a lot of hand-holding is required. Like when I was working remotely I was finding it difficult to access some of the tools and for which I even have to wait for 2 hours for guidance. Such problems are easy to get solved in offline mode. So find a job where you get work from the office for at least 2 years. 

It also provides a good team-building opportunity and network building. You also come to know about other teams as well and the work going on there which may allow you to work with other teams with even more exposure. Try to find out a team that is working on some important project. Interact with other team managers, identify in which code repository maximum code is being pushed, or more code management is taking place, and which is more impactful for the user. If you can become a part of it, then that would be very beneficial because it can produce more impact on your quality of work and later if you decide to switch your job you will be having a good story to show your importance and potential.


***HACKATHON SPECIAL***

It is crucial to participate in Hackathons because it is not compulsory but by choice and if you participate by choice, it depicts how interested you are in diversifying your coding skills, along with teamwork, networking, and problem-solving. This leaves a great impression on the HRs during the placement drive.


Q: What do judges want to see in your solution in a hackathon?

Ans: The first thing is your idea should be innovative. From the interviewer's perspective they want to see how you approached the problem, what features you have added on its basis, how you have designed it because you only are the designer as well, what is your frontend, backend, and text stack parts and why you choose it and how it was better than other options. You can prepare for these questions. It also shows your teamwork and whether were you able to complete the given task on time or not. Sometimes it becomes difficult for those who have only focused on CP and skipped development.


Q: What advice would you give to other students who are aiming for high-paying placements? Are there any specific tips or strategies that you found effective during your preparation?

Ans: The first fear every student face, when they join college, is that they generally don't know a programming language and while learning it many times it happens that the student gets demotivated when they fail to implement the syntax and concepts of that language. Some of them even leave coding because of this. But they should not stop trying like whenever they get any weekend they must strengthen those topics from youtube or books or other sources. I took the help of Saurabh Shukla on youtube when I got stuck on topics like functions, and recursion. CS is all about coding only, it is necessary for placements. So keep trying, after 2-3 times you will understand. My advice would be, don't just study the subjects like Data Structures, Algorithms just for giving exams but apply every topic through coding that is required at the time of placement. Implementation is a must. There are platforms like leetcode, HackerEarth, and GFG that are best for practice and it also shows how questions with such topics are asked. 

Also, build a strong resume. Startups like that of series B and C don't give much focus on DSA but they want someone who can start contributing as soon as they join so they see your development skills. When Grow came to our college they took rounds on JS and react and shortlisted 2 students on its basis. So you have to focus on both CP and development along with your good CGPA. And one more important thing is that start as soon as you can because many students think they will start in 3rd year which is very late. It converts to a fearful environment.


Q: What are your viewpoints about the layoffs happening today and their impact on placements in your college? How do you think these layoffs have affected the job market and students' placement prospects?

Ans: The recession is going to have an impact on placements, even this year 12 offers of ThoughtWorks have been revoked, and around 250 students are placed in Bosch but its joining has been delayed by 6 months. Dunzo has taken back its offer for full-time from the two selected students and the same is for Cisco as well who has given the same offer to around 7-8 students, due to the recession. Even for the 2024 batch TCS CodeVita and InfuTQ have not been organised. Hiring is currently frozen at Amazon till December. But you should also keep approaching some of the startups because they hire throughout the year whenever they get funding and it is one of the best strategies for keeping an eye on some of the startups and applying immediately the moment they receive funding. Though series A and B would be risky you can approach series C, D, and after that, because after funding startups increase their team size and product and expand their business to new locations so there is a lot of chance that they will hire. Since layoffs are going on in big MNCs I would suggest that those who are not getting placement in MNCs should go for these startups.




Vineet Maurya

Actively searching roles in web developement | MERN developer | IBM Skillbuild FED intern | GCET '25

1y

Enjoyed the entire process though I must say transcription is a hectic task 😅

Vanshika Kumar

QE Intern @infra.market | Ex-DRDO | Winner SHEHACKS 7.0 IIITA | GSSoC'24 | 40k+ LinkedIn Impressions | Contributor @GeeksforGeeks | Hackfest Finalist @GeeksforGeeks | HackWithMAIT 4.0 [2nd Runner-Up] | FINXTHON Top 10 |

1y

Abhinandan Singh Thank you so much again for being a part of the convo!

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