Cracking SIG's Challenging OA: 17 Tough Questions for Aspiring Tech Candidates

Software Engineering
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sig | | Interview Experience

Interview Date: Not specified
Result: Not specified
Difficulty: Not specified

Interview Process

The interview consisted of an online assessment (OA) with 17 questions to be completed in 1 hour. The questions covered various topics including combinatorics, probability, and logical reasoning.

Technical Questions

  1. Logic Problem: You have chickens, cows, and spiders. There are 560 legs total, with twice as many spiders as chickens, and twice as many chickens as cows.
    Answer: 28 chickens, 14 cows, 56 spiders.

  2. Weight Calculation: Given a diagram where each side is evenly spaced, find the weight of this shape which weighs 80 in total.
    Answer: 5.

  3. Seating Arrangement: In a circular table, given that A doesn’t sit next to B or E, and D sits next to B and C next to E, who is left of E?

  4. Conditional Probability: Given a chart of profits, find the conditional probability that the year is 2018, given profit less than 6000.

  5. Conditional Probability: Find the conditional probability that news is real, given it has 100k views.

  6. Expected Value Calculation: Find the expected value of a game with 3 dice: roll all 3 the same → +$20, 2 the same → +$10, all different → -$2.

  7. Combinatorics Problem: Given a series of statements about who has the most cats, determine the truth based on the statements provided.

  8. Conditional Probability: Conditional probability with athletes and picking the winner - pick one of 3 people. Given that the person you chose didn’t win, what is the probability you chose the athlete?

  9. Combinatorial Selection: You have 5 types of cookie1 and 6 of cookie2, how many combinations can you select 6?

  10. Probability of Blooming Flowers: You want 2 types of flowers to bloom within the same period of time (10 days). Both begin blooming on a random uniform distribution from 0-10, with different blooming durations. What is the probability their blooms intersect?

  11. Building Arrangement: Given a 4x4 table to be filled with buildings, arrange the buildings so that when viewed from a certain direction, you only see as many buildings as indicated. Find the value of buildings in specific positions.

  12. Expected Value with Cards: Given cards 10, 10, J, J, Q, Q, K, K, A, A, find the expected number of pairs after drawing 5 cards without replacement.

  13. Boat Travel Problem: You row a boat upstream for 4 hours, then downstream for 5 hours, and then back upstream for 23 miles. The stream is 2 miles/hour. You reach your original start at 16:00; what time did you start?

  14. Token Betting Problem: You have 3 tokens, always bet the maximum amount possible but not more than necessary to reach the target if you win. What is the probability you reach 5 tokens before running out of tokens?

Tips & Insights

  • Focus on practicing combinatorics and probability problems, as they were prominent in the assessment.
  • Familiarize yourself with logical reasoning and arrangement problems, as they can be complex and require clear thinking.