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Updated May 14, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.

Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 42 ratings

3.2

“Average” Interview

Interview Experience [?] Based on 42 ratings

Positive	36%
Neutral	38%
Negative	26%

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4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Aug 2011 in Bangalore (India) (took 2+ weeks)

1. Telephonic Round : questioned about my experience and basics about web technology
2. Telephonic Round: Questioned on DNS and HTTp
3. Presentation Round : Asked technical question
4. Logical Round : F2F interview Puzzles
5. Listening and Writtien Skills Test : Online Test
6. Telephonic Round: Inida Manager
7. Telephonic Round : Onsite Manager
8. HR Round : F2F
9. Salary Negotiation

The process was smooth and guidance was provided for clearing each round. Very supportive staff .

Interview Questions

Questions relating to DNS

View Answers (1)

Analytical questions in logical round

View Answers (1)

Negotiation Details

It was fine ...if you really deserve what you are demanding there is no question of negotiation.

Other Details

I got the interview through a Staffing Agency and the interview consisted of a Background Check, a Skills Test, an IQ/Intelligence Test, a Presentation, a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

View Comments (1)

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Sep 2010 in Cambridge, MA (took a day)

The standard tech-company interview (I've had a lot of these over the years, and conducted many of them myself at former employers). First a recruiter talks with you on the phone to confirm that you're human. Then there's a first round of technical questions; in my case these were Unix-, networking-, and systems-focused. In person, they ask you some standard Unix questions, and there's some coding on the board. Maybe there are one or two questions that are real curveballs and require some real digging to answer them, but Akamai's interview questions are not nearly the hardest I've ever been given. The hardest I've ever been given were from Google, where they continually escalate the difficulty of the questions to test your limits.

Akamai's interviewers were good, but sort of middle-manager-y. I didn't get the sense that the group I was speaking with felt as though they were the élites.

Interview Questions

Why might you use SMTP to get large (multi-gig) line-oriented text-based logs from one machine to another?

View Answers (1)

Negotiation Details

I had very little room to negotiate. They offered me a number, I asked for [that number] + $5,000 (or maybe $10,000; I forget); they said no; and I accepted the initial offer. Note that the initial offer was $20,000 more than any other company has ever paid me, so it was a terrific initial offer.

They kept asking me, as all companies do, to tell them how much I'd made at previous employers, and I never told them. I have to imagine that, had I told them what I had made previously, they never would have given me the raise that they did.

Other Details

I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

1.0

Very Easy Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Received and Declined Offer

Interviewed Aug 2011 in San Mateo, CA (took 1 week)

Had one phone interview and then 6-8 1x1 interviews. Technically the questions they asked were mediocre except one interviewer who stood out. Here are some of them I recollect - TCP/IP congestion control and handshake, duplicate a string, how would a c++ compiler behave in a certain scenario, code fibonacci, code if number is prime, how does a shell work.

Besides it was a little difficult communicating with the recruiter who'd go in circles and wouldn't give out a complete picture about the package.

Reason for Declining

Offer was not competitive in terms of compensation.

Other Details

I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.

More Akamai Software Engineer Interviews

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Apr 2010 (took 2+ weeks)

its lengthy

Interview Questions

implement the design of application for store

Answer Question

Other Details

I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Apr 2011 in Cambridge, MA (took 2 days)

Followed employee referral. First did technical phone screen with hiring manager, this consisted of discussion of background potential work once in the position and scheduling optimization question. Brought in to interview with two groups, this was done over 3/4 of a day in a series of two person team sessions with a break for lunch with the managers from both groups Questions included fundamental computer science including networking, algorithm design, and threading and race condition prevention in addition to optimal scheduling though experiment. Discovered afterwards that this question just appeared in the Huffington Post article "15 Ridiculously Hard Job Interview Questions From Top Employers Like Google, Goldman Sachs."

Interview Questions

Out of 25 horses, pick the fastest 3 horses. In each race, only 5 horses can run at the same time. What is the minimum number of races required?

View Answers (1)

Negotiation Details

Yes, negotiation was possible although limited after an offer was proffered. You need to set a clear expectation before the first paper offer is sent out.

Other Details

I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Background Check, a Skills Test, a Group/Panel Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Aug 2010 in Cambridge, MA (took 3 weeks)

They are really good with their recruiting process. It involves a phone screen with the recruiter, followed by a phone interview with someone on the team you are trying to join. If they like you and think you know what you're talking about, they will then follow up with a long interview process (3-4 hours, involving about an hour with a couple of the other team members)

I felt confident in my knowledge area. I believe this helped me in providing a good interview.

Interview Questions

Describe a previous project. Feel free to use the white board to outline your project.

Answer Question

Other Details

The interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Skills Test and a Background Check.

More Akamai Software Engineer Interviews

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Dec 2009 in Boston, MA (took a day)

Received a call from the HR Manager, asked basic questions based on resume
and some HR based questions. I believe the interview went well, but after follow ups for 2 weeks, received
a reply from HR saying skill-set wasnt adequate.
It could have been a little sooner, maybe the pool of candidates was a lot, not sure though

Interview Questions

HR based questions

Answer Question

Other Details

The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Oct 2009 (took 1 week)

1) Most of the SP level Queries.
2) Few Silly Questions, one should not be asking such questions nothing in depth technical in questions
3) More Emphasis on BGP and OSPF

Interview Questions

How can u run OSPF without using area o between 3 routers.

Answer Question

Other Details

I got the interview through a Staffing Agency and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Oct 2010 in San Mateo, CA (took 2 weeks)

I was contacted by an Akamai recruiter who found my resume on one of the popular sites. After some chatting with the recruiter I was scheduled for and passed the phone screen. A four hour in-person was scheduled for the following week (4 engineers X ~1 hour each) which went well and consisted of the common questions about data structures, algorithms, design, white board, and personal questions. Four days later I had my second on-site in the same 4 hour format, except this time it was the senior dogs. Here's where things went wrong, while I had great experience with engineers and the recruiter, the top people did not know the answers to their own questions!
One guy asked me to implement a factorial function and once I first talked through my algorithm he told me it was wrong. After a short discussion it turned he actually had Fibonacci numbers in mind. So you don't know the difference between the two? It happens I guess. Then he took my solution looked at it and apparently it differed from what he memorized online, so he said he will verify it later and walked out without even going it over with me.
Here where it gets really good. The DIRECTOR of engineering asked me a Perl question where the use of "split" was required. As I started writing my solution he rejected it on the basis that the outcome of one function call was wrong. I began to argue with him (respectfully) that I was right, to no avail. After 5 minutes he actually had me convinced that I indeed did not do it right which completely threw me off. Today I decided to double check using Perl reference guide and what do you know, I was right about it all along!

While I think I would have enjoyed working with the bright engineers at Akamai I am sure glad that I will not work under superiors that lack basic CS knowledge and cannot solve their own questions.