Advertisement date: Oct 2019
Exam: Jan 2020
Shortlist for the interview: May 2020
now coming to my interview
Interview Experience :
Date of interview- 4th/March /2021
Venue- DOS,Delhi
Interview mode: Zoom call in ISRO center (thanks to covid)
Reporting Time- 8:30 AM.
My interview was started at approx 11:00 am.
After entering the interview hall, I was connected with 5 ISRO centers over ZOOM call(around 15-18 scientists overall)
Transcript notation -> <center> : <message/interaction>
- VSSC : Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre
- URSC : U R Rao Satellite Centre
- SAC : Space Applications Centre
- SDSC : Satish Dhawan Space Centre (He didn’t speak a word, but sir was observing entire interview)
- C1 : no idea which center it was
VSSC : Good morning!
Me : Morning sir.
VSSC : ok tell me the technologies you are comfortable with (no intro no nothing lol, straight to business)
Me: am comfortable with ML and AI and am currently doing masters in the same
VSSC : define ML (answered)
VSSC : define AI (answered)
VSSC : relation between two (answered)
VSSC : define Data analytics (answered)
VSSC : components of Data analytics ( sorry sir and end)
VSSC: (looking at my bio-data form) here you have written you have worked on some IoT applications during your time in XYZ org.
Me : yes sir that was an Internship.
VSSC: Internship? we thought it was full-time(since the description was complex)
Me: Yes sir, I was responsible in so and so part of that project.
VSSC: makes sense, tell me your fav programming lang.
Me: am comfortable with C and python.
VSSC: python! very good.
VSSC: does python have arrays? (answered)
VSSC: the difference between list and arrays? (answered)
VSSC: python have pointers? (answered)
VSSC: over to you URSC
URSC: what does ‘&’ do in c? (answered)
URSC: ‘&’ can be used in before function and variables right, what’s the difference? (answered)
URSC: what is a union?
URSC: alright, suppose you have an integer array of 40bytes, you need to access it byte by byte, how will you do it? (told type casting approach)
they stressed on this question for few mins, I couldn’t come up with the approach they wanted and they finally said hint was the previous question(union), then I was like ahh. then they directly moved on to the next question, no answer and all.
VSSC: you must be comfortable with CPP also right since you know py and c?
Me: Am rusty in CPP but I can answer few questions. (MISTAKE)
VSSC: what does ‘&’ do in CPP? (ikr ‘&’ day lol)(answered)
VSSC: what’s the difference of ‘&’ in c and cpp(half answer)
VSSC: pillars of OOPs (answered)
VSSC: application of pillars.(answered)
VSSC: Inheritance type(answered)
VSSC: the difference between public, private and protected (messed up big time here :( )
VSSC: ok (I could feel that disappointment in their face)
VSSC: function aliasing in CPP?(answered but they went deep got stuck)
Here I ACKed that my CPP and OOPs are rusty
VSSC: No problem, it’s natural. (I was like wow)
finally, they asked fav subjects. told OS,COA and TOC
VSSC: Over to you C1
C1: What is deadlock(answered)
C1: What is zombie process(answered 2 times with example,they were not satisfied)
C1: the difference between file structure and data structure? (not answered properly, then they themselves gave out definitions)
C1: Where is the file structure stored and where is a data structure stored? (again with hint was able to tell)
C1: What is synchronization?(answered)
C1: Types of message passing?(answered standard ones which are in Galvin but, they asked for more)
C1 was not happy with half of my answers, so I felt a bit low since OS was my fav subject.
C1 : we are done
VSSC : over to you SAC
SAC : What is LAN ? (answered)
SAC : How is it different from MAN and WAN? (told: distance and medium, he laughed )
SAC : Ok tell me the difference in the distance then (told but, interchanged MAN and WAN. he again laughed and said MAN is bigger than WAN, then I corrected it)
SAC : (Scrolling through my UG marks cards) define SAN (answered)
SAC : Types of SAN? (forgot)
SAC : What is NAS? (answered in short, he expected more)
SAC : Two simple questions regarding OSI (answered)
SAC : Ok am done (and laughed)
This laugh was messing around in my head. like I was only thinking “did I do that bad during C1? “(form here only downhill)
VSSC : Ok let’s talk about COA now, what is pipeline?(answered)
VSSC : super scalar processor ? (answered)
BIGGEST BLUNDER that led to my results ;-;
VSSC : Throughput of pipeline processor (a simple and basic question(I know) but, messed it up in follow up questions)
since my mind was playing with me I answered it so badly that even I wanted to punch myself in the face.
VSSC : Ok URSC over to you
URSC: what is coupling and cohesion? (answered)
URSC: sanity testing? (answered)
URSC: we do ground testing of rocket software here and you might be aware of generic software testing, how is it different? (answered in a general sense, ma’am was satisfied)
URSC: Have you ever heard a language named as ADA? (I was like what??? then she asked which textbook did you read during advanced computer architecture, this was a subject in BE which I never read. so you know my reaction lol)
URSC: few more generic questions on CPP (I answered 4/6)
URSC: Virtualization in the cloud(answered)
URSC: define hypervisor (told about layer but they were seeking actual definition)
URSC: We are done
VSSC: Thank you we are done
well, the interview lasted for 34mins there were ups and a lot of downs(lost focus in between). I knew that I was out but, after hearing few other interview exp from my friends I thought my questions were a bit tricky and had little hope that I might get In.
but in the end, I FAILED in getting into the merit list (not even waitlist, as expected. you can’t mess up a simple COA question) but had a lot of learnings from it.
Learnings :
- Every stuff is important, these experiences are just for reference, they know and ask everything in an interview(It’s like that saying “if you even have a single point of failure then you will fail”).
- Here they focus more on the quantity of topics covered, in-depth helps but, try to read extra stuff for your fav subjects.
- They see your BE marks card so know the basics of few subjects you covered in BE(especially 4th year ones).
- Whatever happens, keep your focus in the interview (else you will end up like me)
- Luck does matter a lot but it can be overridden by hard work along with practice (practice with others as much as possible)
well, this was my story/exp had a lot of fun giving this interview, I mean you see few scientists who come on TV during the launch(fanboy moment).
I have given a lot of private MNC interviews but never felt this happy. so this interview has its own class.
give your best! (One day I will get there, passion > money :P)
and congrats to the guys who made it in, you truly deserve it :)
