Reviews of Developer Interviews at 5 Large Companies + Actual Questions Asked
I interviewed at 5 large companies over 3 months and got offers from 2 in the end. Juniors keep asking me about it, so I'm writing this up.
1. Coding Test
- Most were 2 problems / 120 minutes
- One company required an SQL problem
2. Technical Interview
Questions that came up across the board
- The hardest troubleshooting issue you faced in a project
- What an index is, and when it won't be used
- Transaction isolation levels
- Spring bean scopes
- HTTP vs HTTPS
3. Behavioral Interview
- How you handled a conflict situation (almost always asked)
- Why our company?
- What kind of developer do you want to be in 5 years?
My takeaway: the technical questions aren't as deep as you'd think. Instead, they dig in with follow-up questions to check whether you've really done it. Memorized answers get exposed immediately.
The most helpful thing was having explored one project really deeply. Good luck to everyone preparing.
3 answers
Oh, I didn’t know this... Is 2 problems in 120 minutes the standard for coding tests these days? It used to be more common to have 3–4 problems in 180 minutes, but it definitely seems to have gotten shorter.
Well, I don't know about that. Isn't 'the technical questions aren't deep' just based on the company you got into? I interviewed at four large corporations last year too, and at one they started by asking why a query wasn't hitting an index, told me to read the execution plan myself, and had me reproduce in code the anomalies caused by actual transaction isolation levels. It's a big difference in interviewer tendencies, not a company-level issue, I think. If you tell a junior, 'They don't ask deep questions,' they'll let their guard down and get blindsided—seriously.