Anudeep receive 1.44 Cr package from Google

Anudeep Nekkanti, age 21, student of Anil Neerukonda Institute of Technological Science, Vishakapatnam received an offer from Google, Zurich an impressive package of 1.44 Cr and additional perks including relocation and travel. Not an IITian, NITian or BITSian, he considers his preparation and performance in programing competitions the reason for his success at cracking the google interview process.
You can see his resume here to see this trail blazer’s achievements.

Anudeep had Telephonic Interview initially. Then six onsite interviews at Google Hyderabad, then manager interviews. He always focussed on data structures and algorithms, the most-wanted regions of programming...

Toptalent had an interview with Anudeep. I am sharing bits of it here.
You can read the whole interview on toptalent...

Toptalent: What was your preparation strategy?

Anudeep: I did not prepare on anything specific for Google interview, I knew that my strength is algorithms and data structures. I did not want to read about other topics only for the purpose of job. I was hoping that only algo related stuff was asked. I was lucky with Google, all my interviews, all the questions were related to algorithms, data structures and programming.

Toptalent: What kind of skills do you think helped you getting this job?
Anudeep: It is competitive programming. I should say I was lucky about it. It is true that majority of hiring is biased towards competitive programming. One can clear these interviews by having good knowledge only about algorithms and data structures. Open source contributions, projects and machine learning are 3 other skills I would list.

Toptalent: What resources did you consult? Where did you practice problems from?

Anudeep: Firstly, I solved about 300 problems on SPOJ (Sphere Online Judge). I came to know about online judge for the first time in 2012 Jan. That was because of IOPC (programming contest by IIT Kanpur).
Practice was my mantra. I used to try a problem for 2-3 hours. If I didn’t get it, I looked for solutions on forums. I read few tutorials on TopCoder, but I did not know that TopCoder also has algorithm problems. I participated in following August’s long contest, I was lot better this time, I could solve 7 problems. Ended 35th in Global ranking.
With this limited exposure to programming I went to participate in ACM ICPC Regionals. I could solve 4 problems there at onsite. I then understood that knowing how to solve is not enough, it is the ability to think and code fast is more important.
By August end I solved about a hundred and eighty 500 pointers. I slowly started to think dynamically. By then I was able to solve four out of five problems. Now I am quite comfortable with 500 pointers. So, to conclude all that matters is sheer practice.
Programming is fun, programming is easy. My failure at IOPC 2012 made me start it. I thought, I will do well in IOPC 2013 and stop programming. That is how I started it. Very soon I started to like it, then I got addicted to it. I enjoy the feel that I get when I see “Accepted”. That awesome green color. My heart beat raises whenever I submit a solution. I get goosebumps. It was that fun that kept me going. Don’t do it, Play it. Enjoy it, it is a fun game. After 21 months, I am still deeply in love with it. Right now I am preparing for world finals. I am doing problems from various on-line judges like Topcoder, Codechef, Codeforces.