Samsung R&D Institute India interview process (2026)
Round-by-round breakdown of the Samsung R&D Institute India software engineering interview across 4 levels and 15 rounds: interview mode, sample questions, and worked solutions.
Samsung R&D Institute India salary & ratings · All interview processes
SDE / Software Development Intern (Summer 2-month and 6-month + PPO)
Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~1 hour · Recommended prep: 3-6 weeks
-
Round 0: Online Coding Assessment (Samsung platform / CoCubes)
Assessment · 3 hours · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Online assessment
Sample question: Row-wise Sort a 2D Matrix — Given an R x C matrix of integers, sort each row of the matrix in non-decreasing order independently and print the resulting matrix.
-
Round 1: Technical Interview 1 (DSA + CS fundamentals)
Onsite · ~25-40 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Trim a Binary Search Tree — Given a Binary Search Tree and a range [low, high], remove all nodes whose values fall outside the range so that every remaining node lies within [low, high], while preserving the BST structure. Build the BST from the given insertion order, trim it, and print the inorder traversal of the result.
-
Round 2: Technical Interview 2 (advanced DSA + project / light design)
Onsite · ~25-45 minutes · difficulty 2/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Right View of a Binary Tree — Given a binary tree (provided as a level-order sequence where -1 denotes a null child), print its right view: the last node at each level, from top to bottom.
-
Round 3: HR / Behavioral Round
Behavioral · ~20-25 minutes · difficulty 1/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Software Engineer / SDE (New Grad, campus & entry lateral) — Bangalore / Noida / Delhi
Difficulty: Hard · Timeline: 1-3 days · Recommended prep: 6-10 weeks · Cooldown: No formally published cooldown; campus candidates typically
-
Round 0: Online Coding Test (the 'Samsung 3-hour' OA)
Assessment · 3 hours · difficulty 4/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Online assessment
Sample question: Trim a Binary Search Tree — Insert the given keys into a BST, then trim it so every remaining node's value lies within an inclusive range [low, high], preserving BST structure. Print the inorder traversal of the trimmed tree.
-
Round 1: Written / Pen-Paper Elimination (campus-specific)
Other · Short written test · difficulty 3/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Interview format varies by team
-
Round 2: Technical Interview 1
Onsite · ~40-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Detect Cycle in a Directed Graph — Given a directed graph with n nodes (0..n-1) and m edges, determine whether it contains a cycle. Print 'Yes' or 'No'.
-
Round 3: Technical Interview 2
Onsite · ~45 minutes · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Burst Balloons (Interval DP) — Given n balloons with values, bursting balloon i yields left*i*right coins where left/right are the adjacent un-burst values (treat out-of-bounds as 1). Maximize total coins over all burst orders. Print the maximum.
-
Round 4: HR Round
Behavioral · ~20-30 minutes · difficulty 1/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Senior Software Engineer (experienced / lateral) — Bangalore / Noida / Delhi
Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~10 days · Recommended prep: 4-6 weeks · Cooldown: ~6-12 months
-
Round 0: Coding / Take-home Test
Assessment · ~3-4 hours · difficulty 4/5 · elimination round
Mode of interview: Online assessment
Sample question: Find the Missing and Repeating Numbers (O(1) space) — An array of size n holds numbers from 1..n where exactly one number is missing and one is duplicated. Find the repeating and the missing number using O(1) extra space. Print '<repeating> <missing>'.
-
Round 1: Technical Interview 1
Onsite · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Onsite or virtual onsite interview
Sample question: Max-minus-Min GCD over Binary-Tree Siblings — Given a binary tree (level-order input, -1 for null), for every pair of sibling nodes (both children of the same parent) compute gcd(left, right). Output the difference between the maximum and the minimum sibling-GCD.
-
Round 2: Technical Interview 2 (Design / Scenario)
System_design · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Live system design interview
Sample question: Design / Implement an LRU Cache — Design a Least-Recently-Used cache supporting get(key) and put(key, value) in O(1) average time with a fixed capacity, evicting the least-recently-used entry on overflow. Discuss the hash-map + doubly-linked-list design, thread-safety, and eviction correctness; then implement it.
-
Round 3: Managerial / HR Round
Behavioral · ~30 minutes · difficulty 1/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Lead / Team Lead — Bangalore / Noida / Delhi
Difficulty: Medium · Timeline: ~2-4 weeks · Recommended prep: Focus on architecture/design depth, peop · Cooldown: Unverified.
-
Round 0: Technical / Design Interview(s)
System_design · ~45-60 minutes · difficulty 3/5
Mode of interview: Live system design interview
Sample question: Design a Search Autocomplete / Typeahead (Trie-backed) — Design an autocomplete service that, given a stream of dictionary words and a query prefix, returns the words for that prefix efficiently. Model the Trie, discuss why it beats binary-search-on-sorted-array / hash-set, memory trade-offs, ranking/top-K completions, and how you'd scale it.
-
Round 1: Managerial / HR Round
Behavioral · ~30 minutes · difficulty 1/5
Mode of interview: Live behavioral interview
Other companies' interview processes
Worked sample solutions (code, design diagrams, and STAR answers) for every round are available in the FAANGPlus app: open interview processes.