Coding questions
Akamai Online Assessment
Overview
Here is how public prep guides and student write-ups describe the Akamai online assessment. This is not an official company brochure.
Edge/CDN domain flavour.
Usual selection rounds
Rounds students usually mention: Online coding / technical assessment → Technical interviews → HR
| Item | From student reports |
|---|---|
| Platform | Varies by drive |
| Online test summary | CDN/security engineering interviews emphasise networking, distributed systems, and DSA. Exact OA layout is drive-specific with limited stable public sectional tables. |
| Eligibility notes | Drive-specific - confirm notification |
| Branches (reported) | Confirm notification |
Online test sections
Section-level detail not verified in our source set yet - use the placement email / official PDF.
Extra notes from sources
- Public fresher sectional counts are sparse; check your college placement email or official notification for exact section counts.
Sample practice question styles
These are practice questions for speed - not claimed to be from a real Akamai live paper.
Coding Q1: Stack with min
Problem: Design a stack that supports push, pop, top, and getMin in average O(1) time.
Approach: Keep a parallel min-stack (or store pairs). When pushing, also push the new minimum. When popping, pop both stacks.
Complexity: O(1) per operation amortized
Akamai tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Coding Q2: Maximum subarray sum (Kadane)
Problem: Given an integer array, find the contiguous subarray with the largest sum and return that sum. Example: [-2,1,-3,4,-1,2,1,-5,4] → 6 (from [4,-1,2,1]).
Approach: Keep a running sum. If the running sum drops below 0, reset it to 0 before taking the next element (or track the best ending-here value). Track the global maximum as you scan once from left to right.
Complexity: O(n) time, O(1) extra space
Akamai tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Coding Q3: Reverse a string in place
Problem: Given a mutable character array representing a string, reverse it in place without allocating another array of the same size.
Approach: Use two pointers at the start and end. Swap characters, then move inward until the pointers meet. Watch empty and single-character inputs.
Complexity: O(n) time, O(1) extra space
Akamai tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Coding Q4: Check prime
Problem: Write a function that returns true if n is prime and false otherwise. Handle n < 2 correctly.
Approach: Return false for n < 2. Trial-divide from 2 to floor(sqrt(n)). If any divisor divides n evenly, it is composite; otherwise prime.
Complexity: O(√n) time
Akamai tip: Restate the problem, sketch a brute-force idea, then tighten it. Call out edge cases (empty input, single element, overflow) before you write code.
Prep tips from those student reports
- Computer networks depth
- DSA
Sources
- Akamai careers (other)
These notes come from public reports and can differ by campus, year, and role. If your college placement email or the official careers/notification PDF says something different, follow that.