I applied through other source. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Salesforce (San Francisco, CA) in Sep 2012
Interview
I was asked by a friend to join a salesforce hiring event in Seattle. After chatting with a few teams, a technical screen was scheduled with a manager who was not the hiring manager. The technical screen was on data structures, algorithms and testing at power with a number of top companies.
I was invited to the onsite interview in a couple of days. The travel arrangements were adequate and I began the interviews with a 2 hour coding test. An hour on the computer and another hour in discussion. The computer does not get internet access. The questions were tricky but standard Data structures - substring, three number sum etc. The next round was a lunch interview with the Hiring manager, it was a hard time to make her understand a different view to testing. I recommend not to go this route but instead agree :). Then there was a round with 2 senior folks on design patterns, OOPs, coding. Followed by a round with 2 fairly young engineers. This was supposed to be on testing but the interviewers lacked experience and this was a very abstract round. This was followed by another round with a hiring manager.
Overall, the experience was fine except the fact that they did not have either a specific position or a mature interviewing panel. They were just trying to hire a good profile.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Testing a search text box in one test case which covers everything :)
The interview process was smooth and well-organized. The team was professional, providing clear communication at each stage. The questions were relevant and allowed me to demonstrate my skills. Overall, a positive and engaging experience.
5 rounds in total. The first round was a HR screen. This was followed by 4 technical rounds/discussion. In order DS/ALGO, followed by LLD, followed by HLD, finally the Hiring Manager Round
The interview process was well-structured and professional. It started with a recruiter screen, followed by a technical phone interview focused on data structures and algorithms. Then there were multiple rounds of on-site interviews covering system design, coding, and behavioral questions. The interviewers were respectful and asked relevant, real-world problems.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One of the key questions was: “Design a distributed caching system like Memcached. How would you ensure consistency and fault tolerance?”