Digital Specialist Engineer (DSE) and Specialist Programmer (SP) are Infosys's premium fresher tracks — same company, same joining cohort, but 2× to 6× the Systems Engineer package. They are hired through a dedicated coding assessment rather than the aptitude test.
The coding assessment
The test is a 3-hour proctored coding round with 3–4 problems in rising difficulty. In the 2026 off-campus drive it ran in two stages — a virtual assessment followed by an in-person assessment at Infosys centres. Reported problem themes: array/2D-list query operations (easy), two-pointer and sliding-window problems (medium), graph + dynamic-programming combinations (hard), and tree problems with range queries (complex).
How your score maps to a role
| Performance | Typical outcome |
|---|---|
| Easy + medium problems solved | DSE (~₹6.25–6.5 LPA) |
| Hard problem solved | SP L1–L2 (~₹10–16 LPA) |
| Complex problem solved | SP L3 band (~₹21 LPA + stock options) |
How to prepare
- Grind LeetCode-style problems from easy through medium until two-pointer, sliding window, prefix sums and hashing are automatic.
- For SP bands, add graphs (BFS/DFS, shortest paths), dynamic programming and trees with range queries.
- Practice full 3-hour simulations — passing the sample tests does not guarantee acceptance, so learn to write your own edge-case tests.
- Read problem statements slowly; recent candidates report long, deliberately wordy statements where the trap is in the reading.
Two other doors into these roles: the HackWithInfy contest (pre-placement interviews for SP) and Infosys certification pathways via its learning platform. Eligibility for the 2026 drive was 60% (6.0 CGPA) throughout with no active backlogs — see eligibility criteria.