My Interview Experience with Walmart for SWE III Role

In conversation with Akshay Kumar Mishra who has recently bagged a seat with Walmart as their SWE III, Akshay comes from Pune University and has been a working professional since past 2 years in a mid level Product based company. He has mentioned everything about his Interview Experience with Walmart and also his Journey with Renaissance: One stop to all your coding worries.

You can also watch this Interview Experience in a Video Format LIVE on our Youtube now: CLICK HERE

#100Stories is a series of transformational stories of courage and indomitable will to excel, picked from the lives of tech students, particularly in India. Initiative by Programming Pathshala.

Hi Akshay, how have you been?

Hey, I’m doing good.

Great, so Akshay first of all, many congratulations for making it to Walmart!

To begin with, can you please introduce yourself to everyone?

Yeah, sure! So my full name is Akshay Kumar Mishra and I am a 2020 batch graduate from one of the Tier 3 colleges of Pune University in Computer Science Engineering. I’m currently working with CDK Globalised as an Associate Software Engineer and meanwhile I have also been preparing for a switch to some other company with better designation.

Great, So Akshay you have finally made it to Walmart and I would love to know how you started your coding journey before applying for the same and everything about it.

So my coding journey started from my sixth semester in college when I found out that there were companies coming in the seventh semester and coding Interviews would begin.

Since I am a 2020 batch and during that time companies were hiring on the basis of coding tests and looking for more Aptitude based DSA questions. So, I started at that time by learning data structures, basically, the basics of arrays, strings, etc. With only this much preparation in my sixth and seventh semester, I managed to bag a seat with CDK Global (a mid-size product based company) as their Associate Software Engineer

At that time, they also asked about DSA and the questions were from easy to medium level.

All this was going on in March 2020 and after that, I started working on development at CDK Global and took a complete break from coding preparations from July 2020 to July 2021. I occasionally did DSA practise on the weekends but there was no consistency at all. Soon, I realised that if I want to make my life big, then I will have to start building very concrete and solid skills.

And here Programming Pathshala came into the picture when I got in touch with Anoop bhaiya and had a discussion over call.

Soon I purchased the subscription and I till date have the active subscription of Renaissance which I sometimes go back to in my free time, open the Dashboard and just practice.

Consistency came to me around October 2021 when I started working on problems from the Dashboard, started watching videos and actively took part in Peer Discussions.

Some changes that I started witnessing in my journey from here are:

• Peer discussions at Programming Pathshala helped me get better with my communication skills and enhanced my coding skills by helping my peers with their queries.
• I started to appear at various company interviews like Oracle etc to check how well I perform in my Interviews.
• I even sat for various Mock Interviews at Programming Pathshala, and received extensive feedback on my performance which helped me get to know my stronger areas as well as the shorter ones.
• I found out that I was not able to communicate my solution well to the Interviewer which lead to my Rejection in various companies and started working upon same through Peer Discussions.

With all this, I could feel the improvement in my coding skills and it also helped me get better at DSA with consistent effort and I am really grateful for that.

True Akshay, I believe knowing our short areas and knowing your strong areas, can make or break the game. It’s very important to take these mock Interviews like the real ones to get better with your preparations.

Now, coming to your real interview with Walmart, how has been your interview experience with Walmart?

So it all started with a hacker-earth contest. There was a code of Walmart on Hacker-earth in the month of June which I had to appear for as my first round of Interview. I took some time for myself, around 10 days to prepare and revise. I also researched among people for what type of questions they ask. Then the next interview round started with 10–15 MCQ questions which were totally based upon development. There were some questions about SQL, Java and computer science fundamentals and they all had equal weightage.

I had to make sure that I score well in MCQ questions to receive the next Interview round invite from Walmart.

Fortunately, I was able to attempt the MCQ questions easily and moved to the next segment of the Interview.

In my coding round, one question was a simple string question, which was from greedy algorithms. I was able to solve that question easily.

For my second question, it was a bit tricky as this was the Graph question but in a twisted language. It was even tough to determine that it was a graph question. I remembered Bharat bhaiya teaching about Multi source BFS, where we do BFS with multiple sources to do BFS Graphs. Due to this I was able to pass all the test-cases.

After this round, I was confident that I was going to get an interview call.

Once this was done, I got a call from the Walmart recruitment team after a month that I have been shortlisted for further rounds of interview.

This first round lasted for about 1 hour 30 minutes and they had asked all DSA and Java related questions in this round.

One thing that I admired during Walmart’s Interview rounds was that they would Inform about the next Interview pattern beforehand itself. It gave me time to prepare well for that interview

Leetcode has been a very helpful tool here

I would spend at least 4–5 hours everyday on the Renaissance Dashboard and watch videos on every topic. As there is Playback speed feature on the Dashboard, so I would play the videos at 2x speed and revise the complete topic in one go.

I had also made some notes as anytime I would read or watch something Important, I would pen it down.

Soon my next round of Interview got scheduled and the Interviewer was a senior engineer.

He started with a DSA question and it came directly from the Dashboard and my confidence boosted that yes, I knew the solution to that question.

Not only Walmart, but I had given around 30–35 interviews in the past 4–5 months and in every Interview, there were questions which came directly from the Dashboard.

If someone is doing questions from the Programming Pathshala’s dashboard then he/she will definitely relate with some questions at-least.

After this question, the Interviewer levelled up and as we were running out of time, he told me that I didn’t have to write the code but just tell him the approach for the problem that he asked.

I could clear that round and moved to the next segment of this Interview which was more focussed upon Java.

There was a multithreading question, which is very famous and that was around 60–70 lines of code. He asked me to write about that problem, using multithreading in Java and I was able to write it since I knew that problem from before. My code turned out well and as a result, I was allowed to skip the next round of Interview and directly transferred to the Managerial round of Interview.

This Interviewer started with very basic questions. For example, he went through the compiler level of questions. He asked me about my projects and what all I have been working on in my previous company. He later concluded with some behavioural level questions. After a few days, I got my confirmation to join Walmart as their SWE 3 and all my hard work finally paid off.

Now, Coming to your preparations with Programming Pathshala, how has been your complete journey with Renaissance in terms of your problem solving skills and the DSA skills.

So, as I mentioned already, I started my preparation with a very clear mindset that now I’ll only stop when I crack something, which shall be a great tech company.

As I was working with a US based company, it would get really difficult for me to make time and devote myself to the course.

During my preparations with Renaissance since July 2021, I have made sure that I will achieve 100 points on Dashboard everyday. It worked as a motivation for me to consistently watch some videos and solve some questions everyday. My score on the leaderboard kept pushing me to do better everyday.

I remember feeling demotivated so many times, I would start feeling low at 10PM, 11PM at night and text Anoop bhaiya, he would talk me out of that situation and it would always work like a charm for me.

I always knew that I had a strong support system at Programming Pathshala. If I fall, they’d pick me back up.

I could talk to each student of Programming Pathshala very easily and it’s sort of a community that we are building here, they will be with you until you hustle till the very end, both mentors as well as students.

That’s so true Akshay, I always tell everyone that Programming Pathshala is a Family, family of mentors and students trying their best for each other!

As you have been a working Professional, how did you manage time so well?

I have been a morning person since the beginning and as my work was on US time basis so I would get up at 6:30–7:00 AM, sit to study for at least 4–5 hours and then begin my day at around 11AM.

This helped me a lot. I would make sure that whenever I would get time, I start to revise topics and do not waste any minute to reach my goal.

That’s Great Akshay, it has been amazing having a word with you. This has been the most comprehensive and the most detailed interview that I’ve ever taken!

Before we say goodbye, any words of motivation or wisdom for our fellow budding software development engineers, what would you like to advise them?

Definitely, I would like to tell you all something which worked for me. Never scold yourself for anything, if you’re not able to make it today, it’s fine. You will make it tomorrow. Trust the timings and prepare to make a comeback.

That’s the mindset which will take you forward. You should always have the belief that no, I will do it. Anyhow, I will do it. I can be a little late, but I will do it for sure.

Thank you so much for being here, Akshay. It has been lovely having a word with you and I wish you all the best as you join Walmart in the month of December 2022!

You can also start your journey with Programming Pathshala now. Logon to www.programmingpathshala.com and take a free trial.

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