u/Difficult_Goal8466

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A few days ago I posted about reaching the EPAM technical interview and completely fumbling it. Since then, quite a few people have been asking me about the placement process, so I'm putting everything I remember here.

This is based on my campus placement experience, so the process may vary depending on the college, batch, role and interviewer.

1. Resume Shortlisting

First, resumes were shortlisted for the drive.

2. Online Assessment (OA)

The OA had approximately:

- 10–12 aptitude questions

- 2 coding questions

- Coding could be done in Java, C++ or Python

I don't remember the exact duration, so I won't guess.

3. Pen-Paper Coding Test

After the OA, there was a pen-paper coding round.

- Duration: 45 minutes

- The question was a variant of LRU Cache

- We were allowed to take pen and paper inside

- I don't remember the exact question anymore, so I don't want to give incorrect details

So if you're preparing for EPAM, I'd definitely understand how LRU Cache works rather than just memorizing one implementation.

4. Group Discussion (GD)

The GD had around 10–11 students in a group and lasted roughly 20 minutes.

We were given around 2 minutes to think before starting, and we could use pen and paper.

The topics were mostly general GD topics, with quite a few related to AI and current technology.

From what I observed, most candidates were selected after the GD. However, candidates who didn't participate at all, or weren't confident enough while speaking, seemed more likely to get filtered.

So don't just prepare content for GD. Practice actually speaking and putting your points across clearly.

Around 60 out of 100 candidates were shortlisted for the technical round from our group of candidates.

5. Technical Interview

This was an in-person, 1-on-1 interview.

It was generally around 30 minutes, although the duration varied between interviews.

For me, the interview was mainly resume/project-oriented.

The interviewer started asking about my projects and then kept going deeper into whatever I mentioned.

For example, if you mention that you built APIs in a project, don't expect the interviewer to stop at:

«"You built a REST API?"»

They can ask you about the API and its implementation, and in my case I was specifically asked to write a complete API based on one of the APIs I had mentioned building in my project.

So my biggest advice would be:

Don't put a project/technology on your resume unless you can actually explain and implement the important parts of it.

DSA was secondary in my interview. I was also asked a DSA problem, but I'm not going to disclose the exact question.

The difficulty can also vary depending on the interviewer.

6. What I Would Prepare

Based on my experience, I'd prioritize:

Projects

- Know every project on your resume properly

- Understand the architecture and flow

- Know what you personally implemented

- Be able to explain your APIs

- Be prepared for implementation-level follow-up questions

DSA

- Arrays

- Strings

- Hashing

- Linked Lists

- Stack/Queue

- Common interview problems

- LRU Cache / HashMap + Doubly Linked List concepts

CS Fundamentals

- OOP

- DBMS/SQL

- Basic networking/HTTP

- REST APIs

- Whatever technologies you have actually mentioned on your resume

GD

- Practice speaking for 1–2 minutes on random topics

- Follow current technology/AI topics

- Focus on clear and confident communication rather than trying to speak the most

Biggest takeaway

For me, the biggest lesson from the technical interview was:

Your resume is basically a list of questions the interviewer is allowed to ask you.

If you write "REST APIs", be ready to write one.

If you write "MongoDB", be ready to explain how you used it.

If you write a project, be ready to explain the project from architecture to implementation.

Don't prepare your resume only for shortlisting. Prepare it as if the interviewer is going to go through every line of it.

Hope this helps anyone preparing for an EPAM campus drive.

One request

A few people have already been DMing me about the process. Please try to ask your questions in the comments of this post instead of DMing me directly.

That way, everyone preparing for EPAM can see the questions and answers, and we don't end up answering the same questions repeatedly.

If you have a specific reason to discuss something privately, feel free to ask for permission before DMing me.

I’m a 4th-year CSE student with around 2 months left in my campus placement window.

I recently reached the technical interview stage of EPAM. I thought I had a decent chance, but I completely fumbled the interview.

The interviewer asked about my projects and I couldn't explain them properly. He asked me to write a basic REST API and I couldn't. Then he gave me a pretty easy DSA problem and I struggled with that too.

At one point he even asked me, “What have you been doing for the last 3 years?”

The worst part is that I had actually made a 10-day preparation plan before the interview, but I barely followed it. So now I'm regretting the wasted opportunity more than anything.

I’ve realized that my biggest problem is that I know a lot of things at a surface level but don't have enough depth or problem-solving ability.

I have about 2 months left for placements, and Infosys is coming in around 10 days. I'm planning to focus on DSA, Java/OOP, SQL/DBMS, MERN and actually understanding the projects on my resume instead of just having them there.

What would you recommend I prioritize for the next 2 months? And how would you approach DSA + projects + CS fundamentals with this amount of time?

P.S. Yes, I wrote this post with ChatGPT's help, mainly because I wanted to explain the situation clearly instead of writing an incoherent rant. The situation and questions are genuinely mine.

Edit 1: Infosys is coming to my campus in around 10 days, so that's my immediate target. I also have roughly 6–7 more weeks after that for the rest of the placement season.

Given this timeline, what would you prioritize for the next 10 days, and then for the remaining 1–2 months?

I’m a 4th-year CSE student with around 2 months left in my campus placement window.

I recently reached the technical interview stage of EPAM. I thought I had a decent chance, but I completely fumbled the interview.

The interviewer asked about my projects and I couldn't explain them properly. He asked me to write a basic REST API and I couldn't. Then he gave me a pretty easy DSA problem and I struggled with that too.

At one point he even asked me, “What have you been doing for the last 3 years?”

The worst part is that I had actually made a 10-day preparation plan before the interview, but I barely followed it. So now I'm regretting the wasted opportunity more than anything.

I’ve realized that my biggest problem is that I know a lot of things at a surface level but don't have enough depth or problem-solving ability.

I have about 2 months left for placements, and Infosys is coming in around 10 days. I'm planning to focus on DSA, Java/OOP, SQL/DBMS, MERN and actually understanding the projects on my resume instead of just having them there.

What would you recommend I prioritize for the next 2 months? And how would you approach DSA + projects + CS fundamentals with this amount of time?

P.S. Yes, I wrote this post with ChatGPT's help, mainly because I wanted to explain the situation clearly instead of writing an incoherent rant. The situation and questions are genuinely mine.

Edit 1: Infosys is coming to my campus in around 10 days, so that's my immediate target. I also have roughly 6–7 more weeks after that for the rest of the placement season.

Given this timeline, what would you prioritize for the next 10 days, and then for the remaining 1–2 months?