Internship at Credit Suisse – How I embraced programming
About the Author: Keshvi Srivastava of Sardar Patel Institute of technology shares insightful details into her selection procedure at Credit Suisse.
Credit Suisse visited our college for intern recruitment for a technical profile. Students were selected to apply for it on the basis of merit. First up was an aptitude test which consisted of 20 questions related to quantitative analysis and physics. We were given 30 minutes to solve this test whose crux was problems related to permutation & combination, probability, velocity, distance, algebra, geometry, and age. I cleared the test and was informed about my interview at the Powai office of the enterprise. The interview was split into three elimination rounds, viz. technical, managerial, and HR.
Technical round:
I brushed up my concepts and appeared for the interview wherein I faced the following questions –
1. Which language are you most comfortable with?
2. What is OOPs?
3. Define encapsulation and abstraction
4. Elucidate your project emphasizing the database management and how you prepared for it.
5. Explain SQL and NoSQL.
6. Why do you want to build a career in software instead of electronics?
I answered these questions to the best of my knowledge and proceeded to the managerial round which intended to assess the logical thinking of an applicant.
Managerial round:
Subsequent to a brief introduction, I was asked to solve these puzzles –
Puzzle 1 – Suppose you have two buckets with a capacity of 3 litres and 5 litres respectively. How will you measure 4 litres if you have no other bucket but as much water as you need?
Puzzle 2 – How will you design a system for the management of a parking lot with 12 spaces?
Finally, I was asked if I would be able to cope with a technical internship since I was almost a rookie in this field; I convinced the interviewer of my abilities. Having aced this round too, it was time for the HR round.
HR round:
This was a simple interview which began with my introduction and family background followed by a strange question which was ‘Is any member of your family in Politics?’. I was asked about my future plans, my strengths and weaknesses, location preferences, and why I wanted to intern with Credit Suisse. With my decent answers and confidence, I was able to convince the interviewer that I was looking forward to interning there as well as receiving the pre-placement offer, and I was hired.
On my first day, I was informed about the company policies, rules, and code of conduct. After carrying out the formalities, I was introduced to my coworkers and my line manager who assigned me a mentor. Although the official timings were from 9 to 7, each team had its own working hours. I got acquainted with the project at hand for a week or so and was then assigned to the prime services where we worked with hedge fund clients. My first task was to retrieve the client data from the database or the user and display it on a web page. The team had designed a system which allowed the client service representatives to maintain an online checklist of their ongoing tasks. I was given a responsibility to upgrade the system such that it became self-sufficient. The existing system required some data to be entered by the team manually, so we wanted it to acquire data directly from previously updated files and client files. For developing a platform to reform this checklist system, I did back data retrieval and designed a UI for the clients to upload their data. During my internship, I worked on JavaScript, ExtJS, MongoDB, Spring Boot framework, HTML, CSS, and RESTful web services. Being an electronics student, it was not easy for me to settle in the world of software. I spent many nights updating myself with the technologies I hadn’t even heard of before joining there. There were days when my codes brimmed with errors but never did my team waver my confidence; they guided me through it and clarified all my doubts patiently.
As a part of the exit formalities, I had an interview with one of the directors of the organisation. I was asked what prime services did and which technologies I was working on. He asked me if I was enjoying the job and if I had any feedback regarding the internship. I was also asked to rate my work on a scale of one to ten in terms of difficulty. After getting a view of my future plans, he asked me if I would be willing to take the PPO if offered.
At Credit Suisse, my lunch breaks were full of delicious food and interesting conversations, my late evening work was accompanied with coffee breaks, and I enjoyed the company of jovial and helpful people. I participated in a CSR activity of clean-up drive at Sanjay Gandhi national park which gave me an opportunity to interact with my colleagues from various departments. I also participated in a plantation awareness drive at the city park wherein we informed people about the quality of soil required for plantation, and we got to take a plant home. I also took opportunities to interact with the senior management. It was the efforts of my team that made for such an amazing experience. Rightly so, job isn’t constant but people are.
Are you waiting for an opportunity to knock your door? Apply to these programming internships and kick-start your career.
Editor’s note – If you also have an interesting story to share, you can now participate in Your Internship Story Contest 2017 and win cash prizes and goodies worth INR 1 Lac!
