What all Subjects do you Need to be Proficient in to Crack all Product Interviews?

Introduction

It is crucial to choose the right company for ourselves as this determines the next 3 or 5 years of our lives, at least. As a matter of fact, the company you choose now can have a permanent effect on your career. For instance, you might get introduced to a job role that is completely different from what you expected or where you are assigned to projects as support or junior executives that revolve around new technological advancements. Individuals can also experience a domain change or become involved with a field that operates in a completely different manner.

Thus, when switching companies, we must always be careful where we are switching to. However, product-based companies such as Amazon, Microsoft, Google and Oracle are extremely supportive of their new recruits and give them ample scope to grow.

Applicants or candidates who are selected for product-based companies enjoy multiple career opportunities, various prospects and rapid ascension up the corporate ladder. Even though working in a product-based company seems to be like a dream come true, it will be tough to crack product interviews without prior preparation.

Skills Required for Product-Based Companies

Product-based companies also believe in skills rather than education or experience, thus, emphasising heavily on their technical interviews and assessments. This is a bit different than other companies, as other businesses focus on experience and education more, eventually attaching new recruits to secondary processes as support to train them.

Product-based companies wish to see results as soon as potential candidates join the organisation and conduct their interviews accordingly to facilitate this. Thus, when switching from a service-based company to a product-based organisation, one must prepare accordingly.

Here are the skills that you will need:

• Know-how of data structures and algorithms
• Programming languages such as Java, C++ and Python
• Ability to solve coding problems
• Writing clean code
• Tools such as development environments and libraries
• Good understanding of computing concepts such as OS, OOPS and networking
• Business communication and verbal ability
• Quantitative aptitude and logical reasoning

Subjects you Need to Prepare for Product-based Interviews

Let us talk about the different subjects you need to focus on when preparing for product-based interviews. Here they are:

1. Operating Systems

Operating systems are one of the foundational computing topics that every SDE or computer science professional must be comfortable with. Operating systems allow individuals to use hardware and software applications according to requirements and have a huge effect on development operations or when running services/business processes. Without a good knowledge of OS and other associated concepts, one will not be able to fully utilise his/her IT resources.

It is also easy for developers to access systems and control processes with a good knowledge of OS. Most software is based on their OS platforms and is built around them to be as optimised as possible. This makes services such as Software as a Service or complete software products run smoothly and facilitate multitasking without hurdles. Thus, when employing skilled resources for developing products, companies prefer to hire candidates who have a good hold over operating systems.

2. System Design

In most product-based interviews, you will be asked to design a system such as the ones behind Telegram, Zomato or an e-commerce application. This is why, it is important for aspirants to know both low-level system design and high-level system design. One must be comfortable with compartmentalising groups of components and connecting them together in order to create the required output. Interviewers will specify their requirements and it is up to the candidates to provide them with a solution.

In many cases, one must be able to show them the design on paper or in a presentation environment. System design is crucial for software development, IT architecture and product management roles such as technical lead. It is recommended that applicants who wish to get selected for product-based companies understand the data required for systems and how to define interfaces, architectures and modules. 

Product design is one of the core focuses of product-based companies, thus, they place a lot of importance on assessing if candidates are able to implement system theories properly and potentially contribute to product development. You are also advised to learn system analysis and system engineering when learning more about system architecture.

Only by learning all these essential sub-topics will you be able to effectively incorporate modules, data and components to develop a successful system that fulfils all the expectations. And, by assessing this, companies can evaluate if the candidates will be able to write compatible code for future system designs or make optimal changes to existing designs.

3. DBMS

A good foundation in DBMS allows developers to access, manage and utilise data efficiently. Learning DBMS provides a clearer understanding of a database’s logical structure and schemas. DBMS also deals with data integrity, data security and concurrency. Data should be modified and handled uniformly in a well-designed administrative environment, which allows it to be used for software, applications, IT architecture and development processes in a safe and secure manner.

It is not just because of this that DBMS is essential, but also for being proficient in performance monitoring and for implementing change management. Performance tuning, backup and recovery operations are also integral parts of this subject that are highly important for product-based companies. 

One must know how to log and audit database-related activities and initiate rollbacks or access blocks when necessary. Allowing multiple users to use the same data for different segments of the development process is also crucial for a successful software product. Software developers will find themselves in many situations where they will need to employ DBMS skills in order to progress or continue working on a project.

There are two more subjects that you must place heavy importance on:

• Computer Networks: It is important, even more so if your job role revolves around network engineering or cloud engineering. This is why, you should also additionally prepare yourself by studying computer networks.
• Data Structure and Algorithms: DSA is crucial for any candidate to become a good developer. Without a solid understanding of DSA, it is hard to provide solutions to real-world problems or build complex programmes. Companies evaluate candidates on their knowledge of advanced DSA and DSA fundamentals.

How can Coding Ninjas Help?

Coding Ninjas has designed the Job Switch course especially for helping candidates crack product interviews. This programme will not only help you cover all the topics and subjects that are necessary for applying to product-based companies but the course is also equipped with mock interviews and one-on-one doubt-solving sessions.

You can also avail the real-time support system that Coding Ninjas offers and sit with industry experts over video or audio calls. Other than these, there are also tailored mock tests, suggestions and feedback that will help you get selected for your dream job at a product-based company.

Here are the programming topics that will be covered:

• Foundational programming
• Loops and functions
• Arrays and 2D arrays
• Strings

Here are the DSA topics that will be covered:

• Problem solving
• OOPS
• Linear data structures
• Trees
• Advanced data structures
• Dynamic programming

Here are the OS topics that will be covered:

• OS foundations
• Process management
• Memory management
• Concurrency
• Storage management
• Linux OS case study

Here are the System Design topics that will be covered:

• System design foundations
• Architectural patterns
• Application characteristics
• Database
• Communication
• Web applications
• Servers and security

Here are the DBMS topics that will be covered:

• Fundamentals of DBMS
• Data modelling
• Entity-relationship model
• Relational model
• SQL
• Normalisation
• Transactions
• Indexing
• Classification of databases
• NoSQL databases
• Database optimisation

Frequently Asked Questions

Key Takeaway

You must follow a strict and well-designed roadmap in order to switch from a service-based organisation to a product-based one. And, in order to truly ensure you get selected, you must sharpen your skills and learn everything about the topics we discussed. Additionally, Coding Ninjas is here to help you with programs such as the Job Switch course. You need a fool-proof strategy to crack product interviews and Coding Ninjas has many that you can use to gain success in your endeavours.