Samsung Bangalore R&D (On campus for FTE)
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Online Round:It was a 3 hour long contest and we were given one problem to solve in the given time.Question::Every point in the universe is represented by (x, y) co-ordina...
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Online Round: It was a 3 hour long contest and we were given one problem to solve in the given time. Question :: Every point in the universe is represented by (x, y) co-ordinates . The distance between two points -(x1, y1) and (x2, y2) can be calculated as abs(x1-x2)+abs(y1-y2) . Now there are n warmholes, Every warmhole is described by 3 details . -- co-ordinates of one end of warmhole, co-ordinates of other end of warmhole and cost of traveling through the warmhole. Now we are given a source and a destination and we have to calculate minimum time to go from source to destination by using any number of warmholes (possibly zero). Constraints- N<=5 (number of warmholes) Co-ordinates of every point: (x, y) x<=1000, y<=1000 This problem can be solved by constructing the adjacency matrix and then applying any shortest path algorithm, I used Floyd Warshall. 28 students were shortlisted after this . First technical round (F2F): First of all the interviewer asked about my project. He wanted to know about the details so we had a long discussion of about 20 -25 minutes on this. Then he gave me some conditions and asked how I would have handled those conditions and what changes were necessary in my project to satisfy those conditions . He asked me one very simple question on DS, it was spiral traversal of a matrix - Print matrix in spiral form He then switched to Operating System questions 1. Difference between mutex and semaphores: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/operating-systems/mutex-vs-semaphore/ 2. What is a critical section: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/operating-systems/critical-section-in-synchronization/ 3. What are system calls. Name some popular system calls. Why are they necessary? 4 What is a kernel? 5. Different solutions to critical section problem and how they work. 6. Code and explanation using diagram of Peterson solution. This round was almost 1 hr long. He was a very senior interviewer and asked lot of things related to my 3 years in the college. Second technical round (F2F): The interviewer asked me if I knew what BSTs and heaps are. He asked me which of the two will be used for priority based scheduling. Then he asked me the time complexity for deletion of any key in a heap and the actual algorithm to do it. He asked me about sampling and quantization (Computer Networks). He asked me some more questions on Networks and I told him I did not know much about it. Next, he asked me if I knew what trie data structure is. I replied positively and he asked me the following questions: 1. How will you know the actual number of nodes required in the trie without actually constructing the trie. I gave him an answer by sorting the strings lexicographically. He asked me how I arrived at the approach and he was satisfied by my approach. 2. Given a matrix of (n*m) where n<=1000 && m<=1000 . Every cell has either 0 or 1. The question was to find if two rows are identical or not. First of all I came with a very naive solution by making strings out of each row and maintaining a hash map to check whether a string pattern occurs more than once. He asked for an optimized solution and I finally came up with a solution using binary trie. He was looking for this solution and he was satisfied. He gave me another question and asked me how will I determine if a number is an exact power of 2 . Numbers are 64 bit numbers, first I gave him a solution using looping and finally a one liner solution that he was looking for i.e if (number)&(number-1)==0, then the number must be an exact power of 2 . Operating System- 1. What is a zombie process: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/c/zombie-and-orphan-processes-in-c/ 2. Write code in C to create a zombie process. 3. How to avoid a zombie process. He asked me a very famous puzzle: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/aptitude/puzzle-1-how-to-measure-45-minutes-using-two-identical-wires/ I was not able to answer it. He then asked me a general question that why are man holes cover round and not square in shape.
HR Round It was a pure HR round . I was asked what do you know about our work . Why Samsung and if not Samsung then which company?. Questions on family background and if I was okay with the location. At last he told me the total salary breakup. All the interviewers were very supportive and made me very comfortable. Results were announced after a while. Total 8 people were selected and I was one of them .
About This Question
This is a reported interview question from a samsung interview for a data science role (senior level) during the recruiter round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: Trees, Strings, Heap, Sorting, Os, Trie, Graphs, Hash Table, Matrix .
Difficulty rating: Easy
More Samsung Interview Questions
About Samsung Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Samsung. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Samsung are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Samsung interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Samsung reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Samsung Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Samsung reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.