My Transition journey from TCS to Samsung SDE

In conversation with “Tanishq Soni” a student of Programming Pathshala who has recently bagged an offer from Samsung as their SDE after working with TCS (a service based company). He has shared everything about his Interview Experience in this Blog. Read to know more about his Journey of landing to a Product based company (Samsung).

#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 Tanishq, Great to have you here! Can you please tell everyone about yourself?

Hey, yes sure! So I am a 2021 graduate from University Institute Of Technology RGPV in Btech. Since last one year I have been working with TCS and also joined Programming Pathshala simultaneously. I am soon to join Samsung as their SDE and I am excited for the journey ahead.

Great, So Tanishq you have finally been able to make this transition from a Service based to a Product based company for yourself. How does it feel?

I am pretty excited. Excited to even feel the cultural change that these both companies have. I believe whenever you shift from a Service based to a Product based company, it brings a change even professionally along with this shift, so I am all excited to witness the same.

And tell us about your Journey to reaching Samsung, How did you land the offer and everything about it?

Basically beginning from my college days, I would say I have somehow always been good at coding, I knew about Interviews of Top-Tech companies but there were some things lacking with my preparations. I was not very good with Algorithms or Dynamic Programming for that matter. I have always been a self learner and never took any coaching, but around this time I knew I needed some guided way with my Preparations. I chose to move forward with Programming Pathshala as my preparation master and that has been one of the best decisions that I could make for myself today.

It’s strange, as I was going through my LinkedIn feed one day and saw a post by Anoop or Bharat bhaiya which was talking about a student who made it from TCS to Amazon, and I just felt like this is what I need, This is exactly what I wanted so I enrolled in the course after seeing that post, I am fortunate to have made that decision for myself.

That’s Great Tanishq, and how has been your complete experience with our course “Renaissance”?

Honestly, before even starting this course I had aims set for myself, as I had already covered all the Data Structures part all by myself, I just thought that the course might be easy and it might get easier for me to revise things per se. I had experienced that most of the other courses in the market have the same set of standard questions with them. However, the contrary happened and I actually found this course really tough in the beginning. But that is what I loved about this course, it stands out more than any other course in the market and I still have some important questions marked with me which I have kept handy for my future Interview preparations (if any) haha!

Sounds Amazing Tanishq, and How long have you been associated with Programming Pathshala?

I joined in December for a 6month course but I managed to finish the course before time. I made sure I was done with it by March end itself and after that I had just been preparing more and sitting for various Interviews. I recently also faced rejection from Amazon but that’s okay, it happens and I am happy for what I have in present.

So true Tanishq, and Samsung is one great company too! As you have mentioned about your Rejections, any time that you might have started feeling demotivated or may have felt like giving up? How did you cope up with that?

Amazon has pretty much been my dream since the day one of my coding journey and it still is till this date so when I got rejected from there, It did take a heavy toll on my mind but I didn’t give up. I went for a 2 week break to the mountains and it was exactly what I needed at that time. I had been studying and working consistently since December to March, so that break did help me a lot in clearing my head and get back to studies in a much better pace as soon as I joined back.

I completely Tanishq, even I myself advice people to take mental breaks, You can’t just keep on studying 24*7 and stuff your brain with no breaks. Breaks are a must and shall be taken into consideration for mental peace as and when required!

Yes, exactly! My break period helped me get back to studies once back and not feel sad about that rejection anymore so I guess it was healthy only.

Definitely, now coming to your Interview part with Samsung, How has been your Interview Experience coming from a Service based company to a Product based?

Yes, So I got the referral for Samsung from Programming Pathshala itself and the very first round was a written test of 3 hours. It was being proctored (monitored from someone behind the screen) and the question was from Graphs! It was difficult but I managed to pass this round. After this there were 2 more rounds of Interview.

For the first round I was asked questions related to Trie and the second round focussed more upon my previous projects and CS Fundamentals.

Mostly if you clear the first round i.e. the proctored written test then there are more chances of you being shortlisted after the further rounds too and the same happened with me.

Nice Tanishq, Did you also happen to sit for any Mock Interviews here at Programming Pathshala?

Yes Yes! So just after I finished my course by March, I sat for my first Mock Interview and the Interviewer asked me a simple Tree based question, I couldn’t even solve that back in that time. I always used to revise to my Interview before sitting in one but that day I was literally shocked of myself for not being able to solve that Tree related question. But as I kept giving more and more Mock Interviews, I kept getting better at it. They did help me for my real interviews as it didn’t feel much different when giving the company Interviews. It made me comfortable with the whole setting of being Interviewed and that I would say had been a great help to me for being able to crack Samsung’s Interview.

Amazing Tanishq, anything that you would like to say about Programming Pathshala before you hop onto this new journey of yours with Samsung?

I will definitely keep in touch with Programming Pathshala always. Everyone knows there are ample resources available these days in the market but there’s just something different about Programming Pathshala. The way Anoop and Bharat bhaiya have guided me throughout, the co-founders here are your best mentors and this Human-touch in Programming Pathshala is what I will cherish forever. They are not just bothered about your fees but your progress in real life and I guess that’s very rare to find these days.

Thankyou so much for those lovely words Tanishq, it has been amazing having you but before you leave, any advice for our fellow budding SDE’s?

I believe consistency is one thing that everyone should practise. Be it just one question but do practise everyday and you will do great things in life after being habitual to this for sure!

Thanks Tanishq, Take Care!

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