831 questions from 263 interviews · updated from reports 2016-2025
About
Accenture is a professional services company that provides consulting, technology, and business process services to clients across many industries. In India, it commonly hires entry-level Associate Software Engineers, Associate Software Engineer (ASE) candidates, and Software Engineers for software development, testing, and support work.
The roles that come up most are Associate Software Engineer, Associate Software Engineer (ASE) and Software Engineer. This covers 263 candidate interviews reported from 2016 to 2025. Most sat it at entry level (220 of 252 that recorded a level), with 22 internship interviews alongside. Among the 185 that recorded either route, arrivals split between campus drives (129, 70%) and off-campus applications (56, 30%). Most questions fall under CS fundamentals and DSA.
Ans. Choose a real team conflict where the stakes were clear, not personal drama. Emphasise how you listened, clarified facts, stayed calm, and moved the group towards a shared goal. Interviewers listen for ownership, emotional control, practical communication, compromise where appropriate, and a positive result or lesson learned.
Ans. Look for one changing rule at a time, such as shape, size, colour, position, rotation, number, or shading. Compare items across rows and columns, not just left to right. Eliminate options that break any rule. If several rules fit, choose the simplest one that explains the whole pattern.
Ans. Pick a real failure with meaningful stakes, preferably work or study related, not a character flaw. Explain your responsibility clearly, without blaming others. Emphasise what you did next, how you communicated, what you changed, and the measurable improvement. Interviewers listen for accountability, resilience, learning, and better judgement afterwards.
Ans. Choose a real work conflict where the stakes were meaningful but not dramatic. Focus on how you listened, clarified the goal, separated facts from opinions, and helped reach a practical decision. Interviewers listen for maturity, ownership, calm communication, respect for others, and a resolution that improved the project rather than just proved you right.
Ans. Reverse a linked list by iterating through it and changing each node’s next pointer to point to the previous node. Keep three pointers: previous, current, and next, so you do not lose the rest of the list. At the end, previous is the new head. Time complexity is O(n), space complexity is O(1).
Ans. Look for the pattern between terms, not just the numbers themselves. Check differences, second differences, multiplication or division, alternating patterns, squares, cubes, primes, or combined operations. If one rule does not fit every term, try splitting the series into odd and even positions. The next number must follow the same consistent rule.
Ans. A strong answer should balance benefits and trade-offs. Pick a real team situation where collaboration improved the result, but also mention challenges such as slower decisions, conflict, or uneven contribution. Emphasise communication, shared goals, respect, and accountability. Interviewers listen for maturity, self-awareness, and evidence that you can work well with others.
Ans. C is mainly a procedural systems programming language, while C++ extends C with object oriented and generic programming features. The key practical difference is that C++ provides classes, constructors, destructors, templates and a richer standard library, enabling abstractions such as RAII and containers while still supporting low level memory control.
Ans. TCP is connection-oriented and reliable, while UDP is connectionless and faster but does not guarantee delivery. TCP orders packets, retransmits lost data, and provides flow and congestion control. UDP sends datagrams with minimal overhead, so it is useful for real-time traffic like video calls, gaming, DNS, or streaming where some loss is acceptable.
Ans. Java is a statically typed, compiled language that runs on the JVM, while Python is dynamically typed and usually interpreted at runtime. Java tends to be faster and more structured for large enterprise systems, while Python is simpler, more concise, and widely used for scripting, automation, data science, and rapid development.
Ans. The dominant cloud service providers are Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud Platform. AWS has the largest market share, Azure is especially strong in enterprise Microsoft environments, and Google Cloud is well known for data analytics, Kubernetes, and machine learning services. Alibaba Cloud is also major, especially in Asia.
Ans. First find the opening sentence, usually a general statement with no backward reference. Then link sentences using pronouns, repeated words, cause and effect, time order, and contrast words. Identify pairs that clearly belong together. Place the concluding sentence last, often giving a result, summary, or final opinion. Check that the paragraph flows logically.
Ans. Identify the rule or relationship before trying to answer. Separate facts from assumptions, look for patterns, categories, sequences, cause and effect, or exclusions. Work step by step, eliminate impossible options, and check that the remaining answer fits every condition. If stuck, test simple examples rather than guessing.
Ans. Spring MVC is a web framework for building Java web applications, while Spring Boot is a framework that makes it easier to create and run Spring applications, including Spring MVC apps. The key difference is that Spring Boot provides auto-configuration, embedded servers and sensible defaults, reducing setup and boilerplate.
Ans. Choose a real, low-drama workplace conflict where you helped move people towards a practical outcome. Emphasise listening to both sides, staying neutral, clarifying the shared goal, and agreeing specific next steps. Interviewers listen for emotional control, fairness, communication, accountability, and whether you can reduce tension without avoiding the issue.
Ans. A list is mutable, while a tuple is immutable. Lists can have items added, removed, or changed after creation, but tuples cannot. Lists use square brackets and tuples use parentheses. Tuples are often used for fixed collections of values and can be hashable if all their elements are hashable.
Ans. Extract each digit of the number and add it to either an odd sum or an even sum based on digit parity. Use two integer variables for the sums, repeatedly take the last digit using modulo 10, divide the number by 10, and continue until it becomes zero. Time complexity is O(d), where d is the number of digits.
Ans. Inheritance lets a class reuse and extend another class. Polymorphism lets the same interface call different implementations. Encapsulation keeps data and behaviour together while restricting direct access. Abstraction exposes essential behaviour and hides internal details. The key point is that OOP models systems as objects with clear responsibilities and controlled interactions.
Ans. Read the sentence or passage carefully, then identify what is being tested: grammar rule, meaning, tone, inference, or word usage. Eliminate clearly wrong options first. For grammar, check subject verb agreement, tense, pronouns, modifiers, and punctuation. For comprehension, rely only on the passage. For vocabulary, use context clues before choosing.
Ans. Java 8 introduced lambdas, functional interfaces, the Stream API, default and static methods in interfaces, Optional, the new java.time date and time API, and CompletableFuture improvements. The most important change is lambdas plus streams, which allow concise functional-style processing of collections with operations like map, filter and reduce.
Ans. Quick Sort is a divide and conquer sorting algorithm that chooses a pivot, partitions the array so smaller elements go before it and larger elements after it, then recursively sorts both sides. Its key detail is pivot choice: average time is O(n log n), but poor pivots can make it O(n²).
Ans. I manage cloud costs by making spend visible, setting budgets and alerts, and continuously removing waste. The most important detail is accurate tagging by team, service, and environment, because it makes ownership clear. Then I right-size resources, use autoscaling, choose reserved or spot capacity where suitable, and clean up unused storage and instances.
Ans. Merge sort is a divide and conquer sorting algorithm that repeatedly splits an array into two halves, sorts each half, then merges the sorted halves back together. Its key strength is predictable O(n log n) time complexity in all cases, but it usually needs O(n) extra space for merging.
Ans. REST is an architectural style that usually uses HTTP methods and lightweight formats like JSON, while SOAP is a strict protocol using XML messages and formal contracts via WSDL. REST is simpler and common for public APIs; SOAP is heavier but offers built-in standards for security, transactions and reliability in enterprise systems.
Ans. Linux works as a monolithic kernel that manages hardware and exposes services to user programs through system calls. Internally, it schedules processes and threads, manages virtual memory, handles files through the virtual file system, controls devices through drivers, and responds to interrupts. The key idea is isolation between user space and kernel space.
Ans. Garbage collection in Java is automatic memory management that finds objects no longer reachable by the program and reclaims their heap memory. The key point is reachability from roots such as stack variables, static fields and active threads. It reduces manual memory errors, but collection timing is not deterministic and may briefly pause execution.
Ans. The Sliding Window Protocol is a flow control and error control method that lets a sender transmit multiple frames before receiving acknowledgements. The sender keeps a window of unacknowledged frames, and the window moves forward as ACKs arrive. Lost or damaged frames are retransmitted. Its key benefit is better link utilisation than stop-and-wait.
Ans. Virtual inheritance in C++ is a way to ensure that only one shared instance of a base class exists when using multiple inheritance. It is mainly used to solve the diamond problem, where two intermediate classes inherit from the same base. The most derived class is responsible for constructing the virtual base.
Ans. join() is a Thread method that makes the current thread wait until the thread it is called on has finished execution. It is commonly used when one thread must not continue until another has completed. join() can also wait for a timeout, and it throws InterruptedException if interrupted while waiting.
Ans. Compute the discriminant d = b² - 4ac, then use the quadratic formula roots = (-b ± √d) / 2a. If d is positive, there are two real roots; if zero, one repeated real root; if negative, roots are complex. Time complexity is O(1) and no extra data structure is needed.
Ans. I would first profile the model to find whether the bottleneck is data loading, preprocessing, inference, or hardware use. Then I would apply targeted fixes such as batching, quantisation, pruning, distillation, caching, smaller input sizes, or GPU acceleration. The key is measuring latency, throughput, memory, and accuracy after each change.
Ans. Spring Boot is built around the Spring Framework’s IoC container, with auto-configuration, starter dependencies, and an embedded server to create standalone applications. Its typical architecture has controller, service, repository, and model layers. The key detail is convention over configuration, where Boot configures beans based on classpath dependencies and application settings.
Ans. Rotate the array in place by first setting k to k modulo n, then reverse the whole array, reverse the first k elements, and reverse the remaining n minus k elements. This uses only constant extra space, keeps the same array, and runs in linear time because each element is moved a constant number of times.
Ans. Choose a real example where the conflict affected delivery, not just personalities. Emphasise that you listened to both sides, clarified facts, kept focus on the shared goal, and helped agree a practical next step. Interviewers listen for maturity, calm communication, accountability, and a positive outcome or lesson learned.
Ans. In Azure, PaaS is used to build, deploy and manage applications without managing servers, while SaaS is used to consume complete applications over the internet. Azure App Service, Azure SQL Database and Azure Functions are common PaaS examples. Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and some Marketplace apps are SaaS examples.
Ans. Use divide and conquer: recursively split the array into two halves until each part has one element, then merge sorted halves back together by comparing front elements. The key data structure is a temporary array used during merging. Merge Sort runs in O(n log n) time and uses O(n) extra space.
Ans. Java 8 introduced lambda expressions, functional interfaces, the Stream API, default and static methods in interfaces, method references, Optional, the new Date and Time API, and Nashorn JavaScript engine. The most important change was adding functional-style programming, especially through lambdas and streams, making collection processing more concise and expressive.
Ans. Agile is an iterative software development methodology where work is delivered in small increments, with regular feedback and adaptation. Its main advantages are faster delivery, better alignment with customer needs, improved transparency, early detection of problems, and flexibility to change requirements without disrupting the whole project.
Ans. Use NumPy arrays for weights, biases, activations and gradients, then implement forward propagation, loss calculation, backpropagation and gradient descent updates. For a simple fully connected network, each layer computes matrix multiplication plus bias and an activation. Per training example, time is proportional to the total number of weights across all layers.
Ans. Spring Boot lifecycle methods are hooks that run at key points when beans or the application start and stop. Common bean hooks are @PostConstruct for initialisation and @PreDestroy for cleanup. Alternatives are InitializingBean, DisposableBean, custom init and destroy methods, and ApplicationRunner or CommandLineRunner for code after startup.
Ans. Common Spring Boot annotations define configuration, components, dependency injection and web endpoints. @SpringBootApplication enables auto-configuration, component scanning and configuration. @RestController exposes REST APIs, with @GetMapping or @PostMapping mapping requests. @Service, @Repository and @Component register beans. @Autowired injects dependencies. @Configuration and @Bean define explicit beans when auto-detection is not enough.
Ans. I manage faulty containers by detecting them with health checks and logs, then restarting, replacing, or removing them depending on the failure. In Docker, restart policies can automatically recover crashed containers. The most important detail is not to debug by changing a running container manually, but to fix the image or configuration and redeploy.
Ans. Spring AOP mainly uses @Aspect to mark an aspect, @Pointcut to define matched join points, and advice annotations such as @Before, @After, @AfterReturning, @AfterThrowing, and @Around to run logic at different times. @EnableAspectJAutoProxy enables proxy-based AOP, and aspects are usually registered as Spring beans with @Component.
Ans. There is 1 perfect number between 5000 and 9000, which is 8128. A perfect number equals the sum of its proper divisors, and 8128 satisfies this condition. The next smaller perfect number is 496, and the next larger one is 33550336.
Ans. Listen for the main sequence first: who, where, what happened, and the outcome. As you listen, group details into a clear timeline and note key names, numbers, places, and actions. Repeat the story in the same order, using simple sentences. Do not add assumptions, and if unsure, preserve the meaning over exact wording.
Ans. Routing is required to send each task, message, or user request to the agent best able to handle it. In a multi-agent system, agents often have different skills, tools, permissions, costs, and context, so routing improves correctness, latency, cost, and coordination while avoiding duplicated or conflicting work.
Ans. Pick a real conflict where the stakes were work related, not personal. Emphasise listening first, clarifying facts, finding shared goals, and agreeing practical next steps. Show you stayed calm, addressed issues directly, and followed up. Interviewers listen for maturity, accountability, respect, and evidence that you protect team performance.
Ans. I would first compile or run the snippet, then fix errors in order: syntax errors, type mismatches, invalid indexes, null handling, and logic mistakes. The key detail is to explain each correction against the intended behaviour, not just change code until it passes, because interviewers assess reasoning as much as the final fix.
Ans. Predicates in Java are boolean-valued functional interfaces, usually Predicate<T>, used to test whether an object matches a condition. They are common in filters and validation. Method references are a compact form of lambda expression that refer to an existing method using ::, such as a static method, instance method, or constructor.
Ans. Use DFS or BFS as the core traversal, choosing based on whether you need depth exploration, shortest path in an unweighted graph, or level order processing. Represent graphs with adjacency lists, track visited nodes to avoid cycles, and state complexity clearly: usually O(V + E) for graphs and O(n) for trees.
Ans. Choose a real challenge that shows resilience, judgement, and growth, ideally from work, study, or a serious personal responsibility. Emphasise the context, what made it difficult, the actions you took, and the result. Interviewers listen for maturity, ownership, problem solving, emotional control, and what you learned from the experience.
Ans. Stacks use last in, first out order, while queues use first in, first out order. In coding problems, use a stack for reversal, matching brackets, monotonic next-greater logic, or DFS, and a queue for BFS, scheduling, or sliding windows. Core operations are normally O(1), with O(n) traversal when processing all items.
Ans. Design it as a pipeline with data ingestion, text cleaning, tokenisation, model training, model serving, and monitoring. Use a transformer model, fine tune it on labelled domain data, expose it through a low latency API, and log predictions, confidence, drift, and user feedback so the model can be evaluated and retrained safely.
Ans. volatile in Java marks a variable so reads and writes go directly to main memory, ensuring changes made by one thread are visible to others. It also gives limited ordering guarantees. A common use case is a boolean shutdown flag checked by a worker thread. It is not enough for compound atomic operations like incrementing.
Ans. Transpose the matrix, then reverse every row to rotate it 90 degrees clockwise. The transpose swaps element i,j with j,i across the main diagonal, and reversing each row moves columns into their rotated positions. This works in place for a square matrix, uses constant extra space, and takes O(N²) time.
Ans. Use a load balancer in front of multiple stateless application servers, backed by a managed relational database, cache, object storage, and CDN. The key detail is keeping application servers stateless, with sessions in Redis or signed tokens, so capacity can be added or removed horizontally without moving user state.
Ans. Use a hash map plus a doubly linked list to implement an LRU cache. The map gives O(1) access from key to node, and the list keeps usage order. On get or put, move the node to the front. When capacity is exceeded, remove the tail in O(1).
Ans. You cannot decide reliably from 1 km away. The sensible method is to go near the tree, identify the fruit and tree species, and confirm from known edible varieties or expert knowledge. Colour, shape, or animals eating it are not enough, because many poisonous fruits can look attractive or be eaten by animals.
Ans. Model the situation with clear variables, constraints, and a timeline, then eliminate impossible cases step by step. For traffic puzzles, track position, speed, direction, signals, and order of events. The answer is the scenario that satisfies every condition without contradiction. If numbers are given, convert them to equations and solve.
Ans. Use a structured approach: clarify the rules, list assumptions, reduce the problem to smaller cases, and test each case for contradictions. I would explain my reasoning aloud, avoid guessing, and state the final answer clearly. If information is missing, I would say what extra fact is needed to reach one valid answer.
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Showing 60 of 831 questions. Ranked by how often the same question came back across interviews.
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Candidate interviews most often cover CS fundamentals (37%) and DSA (26%).
Candidate interviews show an average of 3.4 rounds per experience, with a typical sequence of Online test → Technical → HR → HR. Individual interview paths can vary.
Among questions with a recorded difficulty, the mix is easy 63%, medium 35%, hard 2%.
