SWG, IIT KGP | Placements & Internships Experiences

Student Experiences and Success Stories from Placements and Internships at IIT KGP

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Devraj Das Adhikary lands Derivatives Trading Analyst role at Axxela Devraj built a Finlatics internship and Ocean Engineering dual degree into a four-round trading selection gauntlet at Axxela—and surfaces what actually separates candidates in high-pressure finance.

Devraj converges with peers on a single insight: finance internships and project-anchored learning crush generic credentials and scattered prep. The fault line that remains: most students still over-invest in theoretical depth (reading Hull, auditing derivatives courses) while neglecting the stress-testing rounds—the trading simulation and HR gauntlet—where temperament, speed math, and small-profit discipline decide who advances.

Speed math and aptitude beat depth in round one Devraj solved 15 out of 30 speed math questions in 6 minutes and 15 out of 23 aptitude questions in 24 minutes—accuracy mattered more than completion. He emphasizes balancing computational speed with precision under time pressure. The cohort converges: raw test performance gates interview access; no test, no shot at the trading simulation.
Trading simulation rewards small repeatable profits over heroics Devraj advanced from a six-person group trading game by disciplining himself to 'small but consistently repetitive profits' rather than high-risk swings. He read player emotions and adapted strategies across six internal rounds. The room split: some chase volatility for upside; Devraj's approach—steady gains plus sentiment reading—beat them. Selection was 2 of 6.
Finance internship beats POR or generic leadership position Devraj ranks his Finlatics internship (portfolio management and derivatives hedging) as 'the most valuable talking point,' far above his Ola Krutrim strategy role or competition wins. He names the gap plainly: 'Axxela values relevant practical experience far more than generic achievements.' Leadership roles helped in interviews but did not move the needle on selection itself.
Deep expertise in one domain beats scattered preparation Devraj spent 40% of prep time on fundamental concepts—derivatives, risk management, market structure—by anchoring learning to his Finlatics and portfolio projects rather than attempting to cover all of finance. He resists the 'infinite learning landscape' by staying project-centric. The advice he lands: 'Quality, in-depth preparation in your chosen field consistently beats scattered, unfocused efforts.'
HR round tests risk appetite, not just market knowledge Devraj's final HR interview probed how he handles loss, processes risk rationally, and manages calculated bets—not trading theory. He credits 'honesty' and demonstrating genuine interest rather than performing. The cohort converges on a fault line: interview panels select for emotional resilience and risk temperament before raw knowledge, yet most candidates prep heavy on derivatives reading instead.

CDC internship candidates stack math, CP, and hiring signal in parallel Bhanu and Kaushal started DSA in their second year; Sanskar crammed summer prep and got shortlisted anyway—no consensus on timing.

Bhanu, Kaushal, and Sanskar all drilled DSA on LeetCode and probability via Fifty Challenging Problems; none started their core prep more than one summer out. The fault line: Sanskar warns that timing and CGPA gates alone won't carry non-circuital students—they must prepare wide, not deep—while Kaushal's path (zero finance, pure math foundation) suggests domain background matters less than rigorous fundamentals. CDC hiring remains opaque on which variable—platform choice, CGPA threshold, or project domain—actually shifts who clears each round.

Kaushal fronts probability over finance background risk Kaushal Jadhav opened his Morgan Stanley approach by cramming Harvard's Stats 110 course and 'Fifty Challenging Problems in Probability' in June, despite lacking finance knowledge. He bet that mathematical depth—not domain familiarity—would carry him through. The room split: Nafisa brushed up basics; Sanskar warned non-circuital students must prepare broadly since they cannot afford profile-specific focus.
Bhanu runs DSA practice on LeetCode, CodeChef, Codeforces simultaneously Bhanu Pratap layered competitive programming across three platforms during summer, mixing contest participation with interview-specific problems from AlgoZenith. He tied consistency—not platform choice—to success. Sanskar and Kaushal both named LeetCode as primary; Sanskar added AtCoder DP contests and cp-algorithms as differentiators, but none claimed one platform was decisive.
CGPA cutoff drift splits who gets vetted at all Kaushal faced Morgan Stanley's hard CGPA floor of 9.0; Bhanu reported JPMC at 7.5; Sanskar at BNY faced 7.5 but noted 8.5 'safer.' No single standard emerges. Sanskar explicitly flagged that non-circuital students lose the early departmental filtering advantage, pushing them into broader prep before the CGPA gate even matters.
Interview depth splits: Bhanu codes under pressure, Sanskar optimizes step-by-step Bhanu Pratap emphasized writing clean, optimised code quickly during rounds; Sanskar Yerule pushed back, advising candidates to begin with brute force and optimize on stage to signal problem-solving process to the interviewer. Bhanu won his JPMC round by explaining approaches clearly; Sanskar flagged jumping to direct solutions as a mistake that reads as 'memorised.'
CV projects move from generic to real-world financial application Vedant Palit (original content) rejected 'Breast Cancer Detection' as generic ML—insisting on financial or time-series projects for MRGR. Bhanu echoed specificity but stayed silent on domain. Sanskar steered non-circuital students to mention applied domains—ML/AI, quant finance, trading—as differentiators when core CS coursework lags. Room converged: project domain matters; no clarity on whether depth or breadth wins.
Resilience language masks CDC's FOMO cascade and unfairness Sanskar Yerule named the CDC process explicitly: frustration, FOMO, temptation to quit, self-doubt about whether 'hard work was even worth it.' Kaushal and Bhanu offered gentler counsel ('don't stress,' 'don't compare'). Sanskar alone staged the psychological toll as real and structural—not a mindset fix—and credited family and peer support as survival mechanism, not motivational platitude.

Four consulting summer interns split on when CV prep actually pays off Harsh and Devansh build profile from day one; Rahul and Sujit bet everything on intensive bursts after shortlist lands.

All four landed consulting summer offers, but they fought different battles to get there. Harsh and Devansh bet on long-term profile layering and intellectual flexibility; Rahul and Sujit crushed shorter, higher-intensity prep sprints. The open fault line: whether case frameworks help or hinder, and whether spikes are real or noise.

Harsh builds two CVs to hedge across roles Harsh Bongirwar prepared separate data and consulting resumes to split his shortlist risk, getting selected by two consulting firms. His dual-CV play let him pivot to LEK only after securing the shortlist. Devansh and Sujit agree profile-building starts early—internships, PORs, competitions—but all four treat the CV shortlist as the true gate.
Devansh warns case frameworks can trap you Devansh Jain hit a wall mid-interview when asked for a brain teaser but told to solve it like a case. He realized memorized frameworks became a liability, not an asset. Harsh and Rahul both use casebooks and drills; Devansh alone surfaces the danger of over-templating and argues for improvisation over memorization.
Consulting shortlists depend on spikes but no one agrees which Rahul Sharma says three spikes for internships, four for placements. Sujit notes shortlisting has an element of luck despite standout elements. Harsh ignores the spike language entirely, stressing CGPA (8.5+ safe) and PORs instead. All four got shortlisted; none fully agree on what moved the needle.
Buddy sessions matter but aren't the main event Harsh credits buddy rounds as chill but influential, solving four cases across sessions. Sujit used buddies to simulate interview conditions and gather real interview questions. Devansh treats them as a cultural fit check. All three say buddies help, but group peer practice emerges as where the real case work happens.
Case prep timing splits between early birds and late sprints Harsh recommends starting prep after shortlist; one to two weeks focused work is enough. Sujit starts two months ahead with one to two hours daily. Rahul runs 20 days of intensive prep. Devansh advises a month minimum but stresses business acumen builds over semesters, not weeks.

Qualcomm interviewers ask STA and Verilog, not just resume projects Surya, Sankalp, and Dheerajeswar all hit Static Timing Analysis in technical rounds—a concept rarely taught in IIT coursework.

The cohort converges on this: STA, Verilog, and CMOS fundamentals are tested hard because they're rarely woven into semester coursework—you have to assemble them yourself. Vishwaksen's jagged path (Data Science → 5G → core electronics) and Dheerajeswar's structured Excel-sheet time-blocking both landed offers, but the room still splits on whether early consistency or flexible pivot-capacity matters more when summer prep feels perpetually incomplete.

STA edges out coursework depth Surya learned Static Timing Analysis from YouTube videos instead of lecture notes, calling it an easy concept that companies test despite colleges skipping it. Sankalp and Dheerajeswar both faced STA questions in their Qualcomm and Quasistatics interviews. All three agree: learning it separately adds a clear competitive edge.
Verilog and digital design require hands-on reps Sankalp solved MCQ-type Verilog error-finding and fill-in-the-blank problems across multiple companies. Dheerajeswar leaned on Prof. Indranil Sengupta's NPTEL course on Hardware Modeling and built simulation projects to sharpen problem-solving speed. Both treated Verilog as a tool to drill, not just read.
Academics alone don't close the gap Vishwaksen split his prep between DSA, Data Science, and 5G courses before landing on core electronics—revealing that summer preparation feels chaotic and incomplete. He argues starting before summer and building 2–3 weeks of momentum matters more than cramming July interviews. The room largely agrees: early consistent work beats late heroic effort.
Internship work and projects matter less than clarity Dheerajeswar's interviewer asked casually about his 8.53 CGPA but drilled hard on circuit design under constraints, not internship details. Vishwaksen's interviewer asked about his on-campus electronics intern role matter-of-factly, then pivoted to DSA and Bit Manipulation. Both learned that demonstrating calm, structured thinking beats resume line-items.
Timing constraints and sequential circuits split preparation Dheerajeswar spent focused time on FSM design and sequential circuits in Digital Electronic Circuits notes. Sankalp practiced CMOS power dissipation, setup and hold times separately from Verilog. Both treated timing analysis as its own vertical, not a subsection of digital design.

Bank of America and Wells Fargo hiring from IIT Kharagpur via vastly different bets Kshitij targets coding depth through LeetCode and Codeforces; Samanway wins on probability, FRM Part 1, and domain focus—same campus, opposite paths.

These two showed the IIT Kharagpur cohort that tech hiring splits on skill type, not campus prestige: Kshitij's coding velocity opened Bank of America's door; Samanway's probability depth unlocked Wells Fargo's quant track. The fault line remains: do you grind generalizable algorithms or build specialist depth—and does your target company even care which you pick?

Kshitij solves by grinding LeetCode hard problems daily Kshitij Banerjee prepared for Bank of America by solving medium-to-hard LeetCode problems consistently, then competed on Codeforces and CodeChef to sharpen speed. He used Striver's DSA sheet as a structured map and studied DBMS, OOPs, SQL from CSE department notes. His three technical interview rounds tested array manipulation, dynamic programming, and music-themed data structures—all anchored in standard DSA patterns.
Samanway skips LeetCode entirely, leans on probability and certifications Samanway Ray deliberately avoided LeetCode, calling it something he didn't enjoy, yet landed Quantitative Program Analyst at Wells Fargo by deep-diving into '50 Challenging Problems in Probability,' the green book by Xinfeng Zhou, and FRM Part 1 certification. His interview spanning 1 hour 20 minutes tested XGBoost, PCA, SQL data handling, and expectation questions—fields where domain knowledge beats speed coding.
Both face rejection risk; only domain fit guarantees callbacks Kshitij emphasizes that Bank of America accepts students from any department with no CGPA floor, while Samanway warns that circuital candidates get marginal preference at Wells Fargo but notes his own non-circuital degree still cleared. Both faced rejection before their wins—Kshitij feared not making it, Samanway confronted peer pressure about department bias—and both credit persistence over perfect credentials.

Five Amex offers reveal where CV depth beats last-minute cramming Suraj Raiyani prepped two months deep; Soumyadip Paik crammed one month and won on a 9+ CGPA.

All five land the offer through strong CV foundations and targeted interview prep — but split on how much lead time you need. Suraj Raiyani and Aditya Nandy push early play and resume-building; Soumyadip Paik proves raw CGPA and ML intuition can overcome zero prep. The fault line: whether you own your experience through internships before the interview season, or bet on cramming stat theory and case logic in the final month. Both paths win, but the cost differs.

CV matters more than test prep for shortlist Soumyadip Paik skipped formal preparation entirely and credits a 9+ CGPA for CV shortlist; Aditya Nandy calls CV perfection the gate, where "standing out of the crowd in the CV shortlisting process is crucial." All five say projects — especially ML models with quantified results — move the needle. The room agrees: real work on your resume beats textbook knowledge.
Case and guesstimate prep splits along role ambition Roshni Biswas practiced cases every alternate day from September through November, using IIM-A and SRCC casebooks; Suraj Raiyani relied on YouTube frameworks plus peer review. Soumyadip Paik never touched cases, took hints mid-interview, and still cleared round 1. Consensus: case prep helps polish delivery, but raw problem-solving intuition can carry you through if you think aloud.
Probability and Statistics is non-negotiable; everything else depends on your track Roshni Biswas rewrote her 3rd-year PnS assignments; Jayatee Srivastava drilled Khare sir's notes and 50 Challenging Problems. Aditya Nandy skipped Deep Learning for Amex and saw no penalty. The crack: PnS appears on every OA and interview round. All five prioritize it. ML specialization matters less — breadth of stat thinking matters most.
Timing splits: early movers own the semester, late sprinters survive Suraj Raiyani prepped ninth semester before placements, Roshni Biswas began early August, Jayatee Srivastava only one week before interviews. Suraj and Aditya both say start a semester or two early to build internships and competition wins. Soumyadip and Jayatee prove you can compress if you already have projects on file. No consensus on ideal start date — depends on your resume baseline.
Department and CGPA gates exist, but Amex applies them loosely All five confirm Amex takes all departments. Jayatee Srivastava cites CGPA cutoff of 7 on ERP; Roshni Biswas and Aditya mention CGPA 7 as well. Soumyadip Paik hit shortlist at 9+, hinting that below-7 may not survive CV screening. PORs and EAAs do not shift outcomes — Suraj's KodeinKGP founder role was a talking point, not a decider.
Mental grip matters as much as content mastery Suraj Raiyani tracked placement stress by taking 20–30 minute hall walks to reset; Jayatee Srivastava leaned on family and friends. Roshni Biswas took breaks guilt-free and kept a goal checklist. Soumyadip Paik laughs off the one-month crunch and credits mindset over study hours. All five emphasize: isolation kills performance. Group study, peer mock interviews, and senior advice cut preparation time and lift results.

Analog skills beat CGPA when Texas Instruments interviews Arpan and Satya both cleared TI analog rounds by mastering RC circuits and fundamentals, not by chasing high GPA thresholds.

Texas Instruments and Qualcomm reward candidates who have built intuition about circuits through projects and study groups, not those who chase GPA alone. The fault line remains: several contributors started prep in semester two with 1-2 daily hours and succeeded, yet none claim that schedule works uniformly—Pratik emphasizes March onward is enough if dedicated, while Debanu prepared across CDC internship and placement rounds. The cohort agrees fundamentals matter; they split on whether early broad reading or late deep focus wins.

Arpan built intuition over math for RC circuits Arpan Deb solved RC circuit problems without differential equations, drawing bode plots and transient responses from intuitive analysis instead. He spent 20-30 minutes on this section alone during his analog interview. His approach—developed through Razavi's books and Prof. Ali Hajimiri lectures—separated him from candidates who tried to memorize equations.
Satya formed study groups to verify analog answers Satya Sai Kommana called analog VLSI harder than digital because solutions are difficult to verify alone. He overcame this by building study groups with friends to discuss approaches and check work together. This method worked: he cleared TI's written exam and technical round while maintaining daily 1-2 hour preparation from semester two onward.
Project depth matters more than resume length Debanu Das included a Digital Engineering internship at Texas Instruments in his CV and faced detailed questions about every component. Arpan's BTP and MTP on data converter design forced him to study advanced papers, which directly helped in his interview. Both treated CV items as commitments to know, not checkboxes.
CGPA opens the door, but circuits close the deal Debanu recommends CGPA above 8.5 for Qualcomm; Satya faced a 7.0 minimum at TI. Isha notes that for the WiSH program, 7+ sufficed. Yet all five contributors emphasize that technical depth in analog and digital electronics—not GPA alone—determined interview outcomes. CGPA is a filter, not a differentiator.

DSA depth splits from ability to present incomplete work Ritam solved four linked-list problems at MathWorks; Lakshya and Daksh both won offers by showing approach over completion.

The cohort converges on a paradox: technical completeness (Ritam's four problems) earns respect, but incomplete work presented with confidence and clarity wins offers faster (Lakshya, Daksh). CGPA unlocks the door; after that, how you hold yourself under pressure—honesty, consistency, comfort with unknowns—determines who gets called back. Yet one fault line persists: whether companies are actually measuring technical depth or selecting for cultural fit and composure.

Ritam masters DSA depth but credits honesty in HR Ritam Pradhan solved four DSA problems at MathWorks—reverse linked list, grouping odd nodes, merging BSTs without extra space, peak element via binary search—yet frames his biggest tip as 'be honest but not too much.' His technical sweep mattered less than how he walked interviewers through his thinking.
Lakshya wins Addverb with partial answers and confidence Lakshya Bamne couldn't fully solve a C++ threading problem at Addverb, yet secured an offer. He credits 'maintaining a positive and confident attitude, assuring the interviewers that I was capable of learning and growing.' Even partial answers went the distance if approach and attitude held.
Daksh pivots from DSA to internship impact at Samsara Daksh Kochhar faced Samsara's HLD round with almost no formal prep—just AWS internship scraps and YouTube videos. What mattered in his third round with the engineering director was 'clear communication' about one project he'd actually shipped. Samsara valued real problem-solving over DSA polish.
Tarun's Saint-Gobain interview weaponizes psychological pressure Tarun Goyal describes Saint-Gobain's Round 4 as deliberately disorienting: comments on body language, unrelated technical questions, and subtle contradictions designed to test composure under stress. The setup revealed what the company truly valued—consistency of values and emotional resilience, not technical recall.
CGPA acts as a hard gate; after that, narrative takes over Ritam and Tarun both note CGPA filters shortlisting sharply—Tarun saw Saint-Gobain prioritize candidates with CG > 8.0, Ritam observed companies short-listing 9+ CGPA candidates on one problem alone. Once past the gate, story—thesis clarity, project impact, communication—determined outcomes.

Squarepoint Capital tests core CS depth, not competitive programming grind Vishal, Krish, and Karan all cleared rounds by prioritizing OS, OOPs, and Linux fundamentals over DSA optimization tricks.

All three chose Squarepoint by mastering core CS—operating systems, object-oriented design, Linux command chains—rather than optimization tricks. Karan's Day-0 collapse reveals the fault line: preparation depth insulates against chaos, but day-of technical failure and ranking gaps still exact a price. CGPA and early-cycle prep reduce noise; interview questions remain unpredictable.

Vishal chose implementation skills over CP shortcuts Vishal Ravipati solved Squarepoint's coding test through learncpp.com deep dives, not Leetcode grinding. His first round covered operating systems and object-oriented programming theory; the second tested Git commands and STL internals. All three candidates treated DSA as foundation, not primary weapon.
Krish started prep in summer, Karan waited until August Krish Agarwal began during internship season using GeeksforGeeks articles and Electrical Department CAOS slides, building systematic coverage. Karan Ralhan delayed until August, relying on prior CP strength (2000+ problems solved). Both landed offers, but Krish's earlier start reduced late-season mental strain across the placement gauntlet.
CGPA matters for shortlist, interview tests CS rigor, not resume Krish noted a 7.0 cutoff but suggested aiming above 8.5; Karan confirmed 9.0+ helps. All three found interviews purely technical—PORs and extracurriculars were ignored entirely. Vishal earned a C in BTP by sacrificing project work for prep; none of it surfaced in rounds.
Squarepoint asks different shapes of problems each year Vishal (2023) faced parsing and edge-case implementation; Krish (2025) encountered binary search and string hashing in OA, then system design discussion post-coding; Karan chose dynamic programming optimization. No single playbook works—breadth in OS, networks, OOPs leaves candidates standing against the variation.
Day-0 chaos collapsed multiple offers for Karan, one survived Karan Ralhan's laptop failed at 9 AM on Day-0, losing 40 minutes. He cleared Glean technical, ranked 4th at Graviton (one spot short), failed NK Securities while exhausted. Pace Brokerage took him at 1 AM; Squarepoint's call came at 1 AM same night. Timing and redundancy, not solo excellence, held.

Three paths to Zomato and Zepto: DSA, SQL, and when to start Bussa and Adarsh chase SDE roles via DSA and LeetCode; Md Zaid pivots to Product Analyst through SQL and product intuition.

All three landed offers, but they took different routes and started at different times—there is no single calendar. Where they converge: strong projects and relevant internships matter more than CGPA or PORs. The fault line is whether to start early for breathing room (Bussa, Adarsh) or wait for clarity and compress (Md Zaid)—and whether the mental cost of the process itself deserves the same prep attention as DSA.

Bussa locks SDE at Zomato on CGPA above 8.5 alone Bussa Varshith cleared Zomato's three DSA rounds and scored the SDE offer. He maintains CGPA above 8 is baseline, above 8.5 stronger—but department and PORs don't matter. His resume held three projects and a Myntra internship. Adarsh and Md Zaid both mention CGPA but rank projects and internships as the real filter.
Adarsh spent 3 months on DSA at 8 hours daily to unlock Zepto Adarsh Tadiparthi compressed DSA prep into one summer break, averaging 8 hours per day. He followed Striver's A2Z Sheet, Aditya Verma for DP, and Leetcode contests. He faced initial shortlisting rejection, wrote 3 coding rounds a day until midnight, then landed the Zepto offer. Bussa and Md Zaid don't quantify daily intensity.
Md Zaid argues clarity beats early start for Product Analyst prep Md Zaid Alam gained clarity on the Product Analyst role only after summer internship at Zomato. He practiced SQL on LeetCode, InterviewBit, and HackerRank—window functions and pivots specifically. He rejected rushing blind prep, instead waiting to know what excited him. Adarsh and Bussa both recommend second-year starts; Md Zaid says direction matters more than calendar.
Bussa and Adarsh split on when to start: year two versus summer focused Bussa recommends beginning prep in second year for 'ample time.' Adarsh started web dev in year one, DSA in summer of year three—both paths hit SDE roles. Md Zaid waited until clarity, then compressed. No agreement on the ideal calendar; all three landed offers anyway. The room split on whether early start builds safety or unfocused drag.
Md Zaid names mental health as the unspoken cost of placement season Md Zaid faced self-doubt watching friends place first and rejections mount. He used table tennis and a school friend outside campus to reset. Adarsh acknowledged hectic coursework and intimidation from circuital students but leaned on peers and parents. Bussa reported no difficulties. Md Zaid is the only voice naming the psychological weight explicitly and showing how he managed it.