Software Engineer Staff Interview Questions

2,548 software engineer staff interview questions shared by candidates

started with phone screen, it was easy. I did great in all the 6 interviews except one interview where the interviewer asked me to write code about graph / tree. I explained topological sort but she didn't know what Topological sort and Graph Indegree / outdegree were, she had a laptop which she kept typing in, i did excellent in my other interviews but this one she kept pushing me to the solution she had in the laptop which she thought was the most optimal solution. The company is great but I kinda felt weird where people with 14 years of experience are graded by people with 2 years of experience. I would recommend increasing the coding round and decreasing the general sessions, this way you can't get rejected by one bad interviewer.
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Staff Software Engineer

Interviewed at LinkedIn

3.8
Mar 5, 2016

started with phone screen, it was easy. I did great in all the 6 interviews except one interview where the interviewer asked me to write code about graph / tree. I explained topological sort but she didn't know what Topological sort and Graph Indegree / outdegree were, she had a laptop which she kept typing in, i did excellent in my other interviews but this one she kept pushing me to the solution she had in the laptop which she thought was the most optimal solution. The company is great but I kinda felt weird where people with 14 years of experience are graded by people with 2 years of experience. I would recommend increasing the coding round and decreasing the general sessions, this way you can't get rejected by one bad interviewer.

Find 3 numbers in an array, that sum or are closest to given sum. Culture fit and behavior round: Mostly around past projects and dealing and handling team members in large complex software projects Onsite: Find connected islands in a matrix of 1s and 0s Write approx function for sqrt n Design a tiny url service Software craftsmanship - Describe what quality controls do you suggest for a critical highly available service before deploying to production A very weird managerial round. Most important accomplishment. Do you describe yourself as a leader or a individual contributor? What kind of managerial style do you prefer? Describe any technical project you worked on in the past. Technical communication round.
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Staff Software Engineer

Interviewed at LinkedIn

3.8
Jul 2, 2017

Find 3 numbers in an array, that sum or are closest to given sum. Culture fit and behavior round: Mostly around past projects and dealing and handling team members in large complex software projects Onsite: Find connected islands in a matrix of 1s and 0s Write approx function for sqrt n Design a tiny url service Software craftsmanship - Describe what quality controls do you suggest for a critical highly available service before deploying to production A very weird managerial round. Most important accomplishment. Do you describe yourself as a leader or a individual contributor? What kind of managerial style do you prefer? Describe any technical project you worked on in the past. Technical communication round.

Given a city and population density, select a random city based on probability of population density. With city A - 60.0, city B - 3.25, city C - 0.002. probability of selecting city A - 60 / 63.252 city B - 3.25 / 63.252 city C - 0.002 / 63.252
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Staff Software Engineer

Interviewed at Liftoff

4.2
Mar 8, 2025

Given a city and population density, select a random city based on probability of population density. With city A - 60.0, city B - 3.25, city C - 0.002. probability of selecting city A - 60 / 63.252 city B - 3.25 / 63.252 city C - 0.002 / 63.252

Read this PR: https://github.com/traefik/traefik/pull/2290 and role play as the tech lead for the traefik project. You need to summarize the situation to your manager and propose what we should do next. Share the ramifications of the plan and what you will do to mitigate any potential fallout. Additionally, disregard the timestamps and assume the exchange occurred over a 2 week period.
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Staff Software Engineer

Interviewed at Calm

3.2
Feb 19, 2025

Read this PR: https://github.com/traefik/traefik/pull/2290 and role play as the tech lead for the traefik project. You need to summarize the situation to your manager and propose what we should do next. Share the ramifications of the plan and what you will do to mitigate any potential fallout. Additionally, disregard the timestamps and assume the exchange occurred over a 2 week period.

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