Interview experience
EY Interview Questions and Answers (2026)
Overview
Section titled “Overview”EY GDS (EY’s technology delivery arm, and the entry point for most CS/IT campus hires) runs a 3-4 stage process anchored by a timed aptitude-plus-coding OA, a project-heavy technical interview, and a closing HR round.
EY interview process at a glance
Section titled “EY interview process at a glance”| Round | Duration | What they test |
|---|---|---|
| Online Aptitude Test | ~30 min per section | Quantitative, logical reasoning, verbal ability |
| Coding round | ~45 min | One easy coding problem - arrays, hashing |
| Technical Interview | 30-45 min | Resume/project depth, DBMS (normalization, constraints) |
| HR Interview | 20-30 min | Teamwork, conflict-handling, fit |
Online Aptitude Test
Section titled “Online Aptitude Test”Sections are timed separately - quantitative aptitude, logical reasoning, and verbal ability each get roughly 30 minutes, with no moving between sections once a timer starts.
Common questions
- Quantitative: percentages, ratios, time-and-work problems
- Logical reasoning: puzzles, seating arrangements, syllogisms
- Verbal ability: reading comprehension, sentence correction
Coding round
Section titled “Coding round”A single easy coding problem, typically array or hashing-based, to be solved within about 45 minutes. It’s a filter more than a deep DSA test - correctness and clean logic matter more than optimisation tricks.
Common questions
- Array manipulation - find duplicates, subarray sums, or frequency counts
- Hashing-based problems - two-sum style, grouping by key
- Basic string processing (palindromes, anagrams)
Round-by-round breakdowns are on the EY interview experience page.
Technical Interview
Section titled “Technical Interview”Mostly a conversation about your resume projects - stack choices, hardest bug, what you’d rebuild - plus DBMS questions on normalization and constraints. EY GDS interviewers tend to probe for conceptual understanding rather than syntax recall.
Common questions
- Walk through your most complex project - architecture, your specific contribution, hardest bug
- Explain how a hash table handles collisions (conceptually, not necessarily coded)
- DBMS normalization forms (1NF/2NF/3NF) and why they matter
- Explain a primary key vs foreign key constraint with an example
- SQL joins and aggregation on a sample schema
HR Interview
Section titled “HR Interview”A closing conversation on motivation, teamwork, and fit. EY HR frequently asks about a time you worked in a team that disagreed on approach, since GDS roles are collaborative and client-facing.
Common questions
- Tell me about yourself and why EY
- Describe a time your team disagreed on approach - how was it resolved?
- Why audit/assurance or your chosen service line, if applicable?
- How would you handle an ethical dilemma or a conflict of interest at work?
- Are you comfortable with the location and shift EY GDS has offered you?
Sample answer frameworks for each of these are on the EY HR interview questions page.
Audit/Tax vs GDS/Technology: why the track matters
Section titled “Audit/Tax vs GDS/Technology: why the track matters”EY hires across genuinely different business lines - Audit & Assurance, Tax, Consulting, and GDS (Global Delivery Services, the technology and business-services arm doing actual software, data, and analytics work for EY’s global member firms). This page describes the GDS/technology track most CS/IT campus hires enter: an OA with a coding section, a project-and-DBMS-heavy technical interview, and HR. Audit and Tax hiring, aimed largely at commerce and accounting graduates, runs a lighter process built around aptitude, group discussion, and HR, with no coding component. Confirm which business line your registration or offer letter names before you prep.
Common technical interview questions and answers
Section titled “Common technical interview questions and answers”Q: How does a hash table handle collisions?
A collision happens when two different keys hash to the same bucket, which is unavoidable because the key space is larger than the bucket array. Separate chaining stores a linked list in each bucket - or, in Java 8 and later, a balanced tree once a bucket exceeds eight entries - so lookup degrades from O(1) average to O(n) or O(log n) in the worst case. Open addressing instead probes for another empty slot using linear probing, quadratic probing or double hashing, which keeps everything in one contiguous array and is cache-friendly but suffers clustering and needs tombstones on deletion. Either way performance depends on the load factor, and most implementations resize and rehash once occupancy passes about 0.75. EY interviewers usually want this explanation rather than an implementation.
Q: How do you solve the two-sum problem efficiently?
The brute-force approach checks every pair in O(n^2). The efficient answer uses a hash map: iterate once, and for each element compute the complement (target minus the current value), checking whether that complement is already in the map. If it is, you have your pair; otherwise store the current value with its index and continue. That is O(n) time and O(n) space, and it handles duplicates and negative numbers correctly because you look up the complement before inserting the current element. If the array is already sorted and you must use O(1) space, the two-pointer approach from both ends is O(n) instead.
Q: How do you check whether two strings are anagrams?
The simplest correct approach sorts both strings and compares them, which is O(n log n). The better answer uses a frequency count: build a hash map or a 26-slot array of character counts from the first string, decrement for every character of the second, and confirm every count ends at zero - O(n) time and O(1) space when the alphabet is fixed. Check the lengths first and return false immediately if they differ, since that is the cheapest possible rejection. Clarify with the interviewer whether case, spaces and Unicode matter, because a fixed 26-slot array quietly breaks the moment non-ASCII input is allowed.
Q: What are 1NF, 2NF and 3NF in database normalization?
First normal form requires every column to hold a single atomic value with no repeating groups, so a comma-separated list of phone numbers in one cell violates it. Second normal form requires 1NF plus the elimination of partial dependencies - no non-key attribute may depend on only part of a composite primary key, which typically shows up in a table keyed on order_id plus product_id where product_name depends on product_id alone. Third normal form requires 2NF plus no transitive dependency, so if employee_id determines dept_id and dept_id determines dept_name, then dept_name must move into a departments table. The purpose is removing redundancy and the insert, update and delete anomalies it causes, though reporting systems often denormalize deliberately for read speed.
Q: What is the difference between a primary key and a foreign key?
A primary key uniquely identifies each row in a table; it cannot be NULL, there is only one per table, and it usually backs a clustered index. A foreign key is a column in one table that references the primary key of another, enforcing referential integrity so no order can point at a customer id that does not exist. A foreign key may be NULL - which is how an optional relationship is modelled - and duplicate values are fine, since many orders belong to one customer. Deleting a referenced parent row is governed by the declared action: RESTRICT or NO ACTION blocks it, CASCADE deletes the children, SET NULL blanks the reference. A unique key differs from a primary key in that it permits NULL and a table may have several.
Q: Write a SQL query to find each department’s average salary, keeping only departments above 50000.
SELECT d.dept_name, AVG(e.salary) AS avg_salary FROM employees e JOIN departments d ON e.dept_id = d.dept_id GROUP BY d.dept_name HAVING AVG(e.salary) > 50000 ORDER BY avg_salary DESC; The filter belongs in HAVING rather than WHERE because it tests an aggregate, which does not exist until after grouping. If you also wanted to exclude interns before the average is computed, that row-level condition would go in WHERE, and both clauses can appear in the same query. Note that AVG ignores NULL salaries rather than treating them as zero, which can quietly skew the result when the column is nullable.
Q: How do you find duplicates in an array?
The general answer is a hash set: iterate once and report any element already present before inserting it - O(n) time and O(n) space. If the array contains n values in the range 1 to n, you can do it in O(1) extra space with index marking: for each value v, negate the element at index v minus 1, and if it is already negative then v is a duplicate. Sorting first and scanning adjacent pairs is a third option at O(n log n) time and O(1) space, worth mentioning when the interviewer forbids extra memory. State which constraint you are optimising for - EY’s coding round rewards a clean, correct solution with the trade-offs explained more than a clever one-liner.
Frequently asked questions about EY interviews
Section titled “Frequently asked questions about EY interviews”What is the EY interview process for freshers?
For EY GDS (EY’s technology delivery arm and the entry point for most CS/IT campus hires), the process usually runs 3-4 stages: 1. Online Aptitude Test - quantitative, logical reasoning, verbal ability, sections often timed separately (about 30 minutes each). 2. Coding round - typically one easy coding problem (45 minutes), focused on arrays/hashing. 3. Technical Interview (30-45 minutes) - mostly project-based, plus DBMS questions on normalization and constraints. 4. HR Interview (20-30 minutes) - motivation, teamwork, and fit. Total duration: 2-3 weeks from application to offer.
What questions are asked in EY interviews?
The OA covers aptitude (quant, logical, verbal) plus one easy coding problem on arrays/hashing. EY GDS technical interviewers lean toward understanding over syntax recall - expect “explain how a hash table handles collisions” more than “implement one from scratch” - alongside a deep dive into your resume project and DBMS questions on normalization and constraints. HR checks teamwork and conflict-handling with real examples.
How many rounds are there in the EY interview?
EY typically runs an Online Aptitude Test, a separate coding round, a Technical Interview, and an HR Interview - so 3-4 stages, sometimes with a Group Discussion added at some campuses. Some drives merge HR with a managerial round; check that cycle’s college placement email.
How should I prepare for EY interviews?
Practise timed aptitude sections (quant, logical, verbal) plus easy array/hashing coding problems, and be ready to explain your approach conceptually, not just recite syntax. Revise DBMS fundamentals (normalization, constraints), prepare a project you can discuss in depth - a GitHub repo involving data work or API integration reads well - and use STAR for HR answers.
What is EY GDS, and is the interview different from Audit or Tax roles?
EY GDS (Global Delivery Services) is EY’s technology and business-services delivery arm, and it’s what this page’s process describes - aptitude plus a coding round, a project-heavy technical interview, and HR. EY’s core Audit, Tax, and Assurance hiring runs a separate, largely non-coding process centered on aptitude, group discussion, and HR, aimed mainly at commerce/accounting graduates.
Does EY ask coding questions for freshers?
Yes, for GDS/technology roles. Expect one easy coding problem in the OA (usually arrays or hashing) and conceptual coding-adjacent questions in the technical interview - EY GDS interviewers often care more about whether you can explain a concept like hash collision handling than whether you can code it cold on a whiteboard.