I applied through an online job website and was contacted by their HR staff. She was very efficient and able to answer my queries. I was told the interview date and time. On the day of the interview, I was greeted at the hotel lobby by the recruiting manager. When my time came, the interviewer himself came to take me to the room. The following were the questions asked:

• Write the function prototype for strcmp.
• Write the implementation for strcmp (there was a mistake in that, and they made me point it out).
• They gave me a structure: struct A { char a; int b; };. What is the size of it? (Concept: zero padding).
• How will you count the number of 1s in an integer? Write a function to do that (using a mask or bit shifting).
• Polymorphism.
• Why do you use virtual functions?
• What is inheritance?
• Since I had put Linux experience on the resume, they asked about sockets, TCP/IP, and UDP sockets.
• Which kind of socket do you use for what application?
• Mutexes: I was asked the return type of trylock() and how it works.
• Describe how to set up a client and server connection (what are the various function calls you use to set up a client-server?).

The questions were not that tough, but I don't know why I was not able to do well. The interviewers were good and knew what they were looking for in candidates. Overall, it was a good experience for me.

Explain an interesting project that you have worked on and why you think it is interesting.