How to crack "NTP Software" coding interview

 NTP Software is the worldwide leader in the management and control of unstructured data. It's a very good chance to developers in Egypt to work with, especially that NTP hire C++ developers which is very rare in Egypt.

 This Article will be useful for any candidate pass the HR interview and now prepare him\herself for coding one. The coding interview consist of 2 parts: face to face interview and task. If you pass the face to face interview the interviewer will assign a task to measure your skills. So to be ready for NTP you must prepare yourself by the following points.


1. C++:
 You must have very high skills in the C ++, don't depend only on the first grad course in the collage. The interviewer will focus on Pointers and OOP Principles. The interviewer will ask you to write some code, and will ask you to trace and discus other code. Expect questions like:

• Write a C++ program that copies a string in another string.

2. Data Structure:
    The interview questions will link between STL and Data Structures. Expect questions like

• What is the data structure used in STL Vector\Map\....?
• What is the Order of insertion in STL list? How to make it faster?

3. Coding Skills: 
    Take care from this important points:

• Try to avoid any Exceptions in your code by (check null, handle special cases).
• Make your code readable as you can.
• Don't forget to review and trace your code (do it in front of your interviewer in a loud voice).

4. Windows Programming:
 I think reading first 3 chapters from "Windows via C/C++, Fifth Edition Jeffrey Richter (Wintellect) Christophe Nasarre" book will be enough as a start. summary of this chapters can be reached from here.

5. Inter-process communication (IPC):
 Is a set of methods for the exchange of data among multiple threads in one or more processes. It is very important, we use it in most of our code, and you will use for first time it in your interview task.

 The interview will not without some puzzles to measure your thinking way, so even if you don't know the correct answer, think in a loud voice, discuss with the interviewer your ideas.


Thanks to Mohamed Fouad (LinkedIn, Blog) for helping me finish the Article.