I interviewed with MathWorks. The first round was with HR. She asked some basic questions.

The next round was a technical phone interview, lasting about an hour. The questions were very similar to the ones mentioned on Glassdoor. I think I answered about 80-85% correctly.

I was then invited for an onsite interview. The onsite interview started with a technical interview, which was similar to the phone interview but involved whiteboard problems and went a little deeper. After that, I had a manager interview, which was behavioral. We then went for lunch with two Application Support engineers. At last, I was interviewed by HR. The HR questions were similar to the manager's, and she then explained the benefits.

I prepared many technical questions from Glassdoor. I did reasonably well in the technical portions. I was really interested in the job. However, I was not offered a position. I am really not sure about the reasons why. I did not prepare well for the behavioral questions, and that might have been the reason.

There are many reviews for technical phone and HR interviews. I am focusing on onsite interview questions.

JAVA

• Given a few code snippets and asked to find errors.

  • A program which tried to remove a star along with the character preceding and succeeding it. Something like: java String s = "abcsdsdfsdfasd"; String t = ""; for(int i = 0; i < s.length(); i++){ String temp = s.charAt(i); if(temp == '*'){ // Some erroneous code trying to blank out character at i-1 and i+1 // and making t = s } } System.out.println(t);

• A code on multithreading: java class MyThread extends Thread { int myNum; static int count;

  MyThread(int i) {
      super();
      count++;
      myNum = i;
  }
  
  public void run() {
      System.out.println("Count is " + count + " MyNum is " + myNum);
  }
  
  public static void main(String args[]) {
      for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
          MyThread mt = new MyThread(i);
          mt.start();
      }
  }
  

  }

• Code on garbage collection: Which of these objects are eligible for garbage collection? java class Test { Test obj; }

  class Main { public static void main(String args[]) { Test t1 = new Test(); Test t2 = new Test(); Test t3 = new Test();

      t1.obj = t2;
      t2.obj = t3;
      t3.obj = t1;
  
      t1 = null;
      t2 = null;
      t3 = null;
  }
  

  }

C/C++

• Shown code to find errors or outputs: c++ char c[] = {'a','b','c','d','e','f'}; char d[6];

  while(*d++ = *c++);

• c++ class Test { public: static int count; Test() { count++; } };

  Test::count = 0;

  Test t1; Test t2; Test t3;

  cout << t1.count << t2.count << t3.count << endl;

• Given a function: c++ int myfunc(B* obj) { // Does something }

  Asked which of the following calls are valid given the following hierarchy:

    A
   / \
  B   C
  

  / D

  c++ B* b = new B; D* d = new D; A* a = new A; C* c = new C;

  myfunc(b); myfunc(d); myfunc(c); myfunc(a);

Math

• Was shown a function on the board and asked to draw its derivative.
• Was given a parabola y = 12 - x^2 (symmetric about the Y-axis) and asked to find the maximum area of a rectangle that rests on the X-axis and is inside the parabola.

Programming Concepts

• Asked to write a program to draw 1/8th of a circle.
• Asked to write a sorting program.
• Shortest route for an ant crawling on a solid cube from one corner to the diagonally opposite corner.

Signal Processing

• Given two discrete sequences and asked to find their convolution.
• Asked the difference between discrete and circular convolution.
• Given a sequence x[n] and asked to find step-interpolated downsampling x[2n - 0.5] and upsampling x[n/2 + 0.5].

Manager Interview / HR Interview

• What would your manager say about you? Both positive and negative.
• Any other offers?