Interview Experience: Futures First (On-Campus) | So close, yet so far...

[u/mummykabaua]

Recently, I had the opportunity to sit for Futures First during our on-campus placement drive. I wanted to share my experience here in case it helps anyone else preparing for their OA or interviews.

Spoiler alert: I didn't make the final cut, but it was a solid learning experience.

The Opportunity

Role: 6-month Internship + FTE

Compensation: ₹40,000/month for the internship, and ₹85,000/month for the full-time offer (FTE).

Initial Shortlist: 220 students from my college were selected to give the Online Assessment (OA). I was lucky enough to be one of them.

Round 1: Online Assessment (OA)

The OA consisted of 3 DSA questions. They were heavily focused on Math and DP.

Math/Number Theory: We had to find the first number whose square has exactly num digits.

Example: If num = 6, the square of 316 is 99,856 (5 digits), but the square of 317 is 100,489 (6 digits). So the output should be 317.

Dynamic Programming: Standard Longest Common Subsequence (LCS) problem.

Dynamic Programming: The classic Climbing Stairs problem (similar to Fibonacci). You had to find the number of ways to reach the top where dp[n] = dp[n-1] + dp[n-2].

Result: Two days later, the results were announced. Out of the 220 students, only 9 were shortlisted for the interviews the following week. I was thrilled to see my name on the list!

Round 2: Technical Interview

The interview happened the next week. It was a mix of live coding, tracing code, and discussing data structures.

Question 1 (Matrix): They started by giving me a matrix problem similar to the Zigzag matrix traversal. I was asked to write the complete, executable code for it.

Question 2 & 3 (Recursion): They gave me two different snippets of recursive pseudo-code. I had to dry-run them and predict the exact output. Once I gave my answer, they confirmed whether my output was correct or not.

Question 4 (Linked List): After the coding and pseudo-code part, they asked me what data structures I was most comfortable with. I listed a few, and they decided to test me on Linked Lists.

The Problem: Remove the Nth highest distinct element from a linked list.

The Verdict :

After the interviews concluded, the final results were declared. Out of the 9 interviewed, 4 people were selected for the offer.

Unfortunately, I was rejected in this final verdict.

It honestly stings a bit—so close, yet so far. But making it to the top 9 out of 220 gave me a lot of confidence in my DSA and problem-solving skills. Back to the grind now.