Yahoo Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews
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Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 13 ratings 
“Average” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 13 ratings
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| 1–10 of 13 Yahoo Interviews | Sort by |
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Aug 5, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jul 2011 in Bangalore (India) (took 1 week)
Attended the interview today!!!
Knew in advance that for them Experience level does not matter.
So prepared on data structure and algorithms for a week.
Initial round Phone interview(30 min) :-
Asked basic details about my work, then suddenly datastructure questions.
1) Find median from continuously changing stream of data.
2) Find 2nd maximum in array.
3) Find nth largest in Array.
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Called for f2f discussion.
All 3 technical and one hiring manager rounds consisted of only data structures.
No one asked anything in Java. Though I was called as Java requirement.
Dont know why so much concentration on data structures only.
Also, I feel my skills were not matching, as they wanted someone who has worked on PHP,Perl.
Honestly, I was not expecting negative reply but I guess my 2nd technical round and skills impacted my interview.
At the end I feel that if you want to go to yahoo, then study like a fresher preparing for your first job. Experience level doesn't matter.
Interview Questions
2) Find the length of linked list loop.
3) How to get the values of two elements from array whose sum is N.
2nd round :
1) Get nth largest/smallest from BST.
2) How will you remove duplicate paragraph from big file.
Told hashmap, asked me to write hashcode :-(
3) Perform merge of multiple arrays. (k way merge)
Thought for sometime, but could not tell. :-(
3rd round :
1) Middle of linked list
2) sum in binary search tree
3) Some unix questions.
4) How will u design Google maps or yahoo maps.
4th Round :
Puzzle on 25 horses.
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Aug 3, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 2+ weeks)
I was contacted by a hiring manager to go over my background and some screening questions such as race conditions, deadlocks, some C++ questions etc. He told me he'd like to schedule an on site interview - which was setup by their HR folks.
The onsite interview was a underwhelming. The guys supposed to interview me were not on time. One interview related to software design (patterns etc.) went really well. Second interview was more focused on C++ internals and other coding which went well. Interview related to data structures and algorithms was my weakest. I also met a director of engineering and had lunch with him. That also went fine.
Overall I thought their screening process could have been better. They were looking for some one well versed in web technologies and with expertise in algorithms whereas my past experience is in firmware, middle-ware and UI for handsets. I thought it was wastage of time for both parties and I had to burn a day of vacation.
They were right to not make me an offer. It was a bad match for both parties. I wish I had probed more to ensure that it was going to be something I would like to do and would match my skills.
Interview Questions
Other Details
The interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Jul 28, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2011 in Bangalore (India) (took a day)
It took whole day to complete the process. Surprised by the kind of people and kind of technical questions asked. Probably I had over expectations. There is no focus on potential, thought process and problem sloving skills but just very syntax and JCP kind of questions. There is no intelligence in the questions so very disappointed. Lots of API related questions which no software engineer need to by heart. Looks like Yahoo standard has been going down.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Apr 20, 2011
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2010 in Santa Clara, CA (took 2 days)
Phone interview was more about specifics of Java/J2EE technology.
1. What's the diff between interface and abstract class
2. Implement Fibonacci series. Can you implement the same using recursion? Which one is more efficient? why ?
3. What are the steps involved in creating a complete workflow of a module in Spring and Hibernate
4. What is dependency injection? Why is it good?
5. Explain many-to-many mapping concept using Hibernate
6. Write the query to find duplicates
1:1 interview had 3 rounds
1. You have a Employee class and Dept class. Give a complete design and implementation to get all Employees grouped by Departments
- Many-to Many mapping again with spring injections, they also checked why would you use certain data structures
2. Second round was based on the Producer Consumer problem and involved many threading concepts
3. Third round was based on design and performance oriented thinking. Let's say you had a 10Gigs of a text file and you were to collect a certain pattern of string and store it in DB. What was the most efficient way of doing it ?
The advice is:
Be good in Collections, Threads and Performance related questions
Work culture is good but very hectic. Agile, scrum methodologies are followed and there are pretty stringent deadlines. People are co-operative but one must have a lot of energy to find your way through gigantic code base and slightly complicated procedure to build and test the code. Good luck.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Staffing Agency and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Aug 6, 2010
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Apr 2008 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 2 weeks)
Recruiter introduced me to the hiring team. There's a team of people dedicated to hiring at the time. Initial phone screen was pretty easy. Onsite interview consists of 5 people. A lot of grilling from 3 out of 5. The other 2 are more behavioral.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Jun 2, 2010
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Jun 2010 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 4 weeks)
I got a call from a software developer who spoke in a monotone, was difficult to understand and hung up on me without saying "bye". He didn't want to tell me about the position and always wanted to call back. I gave up and e-mailed him that I wasn't interested. Two weeks later, a Yahoo! recruiter contacted me, asking if I heard from anybody at Yahoo! yet and if I was still interested. I was still interested but was not interested in that first software developer. I got an e-mail from a second software developer with a vague job description for the Yahoo! Mail group which was looking for anybody from a rock star new grad to somebody with 15+ years of experience plus "only true ninjas need apply" (exact quote). I got a call from the second software developer. He was pleasant and asked me basic questions about Java interfaces, Java static members, Java inheritance, JavaScript innerHTML, JavaScript document.all, design patterns and big O notation. I answered all questions but told him that big O notation and design patterns were not very interesting to me so he asked very few questions on those topics. A day later, I got an e-mail rejection from a person in HR. I wrote a followup e-mail to the second software developer but no response yet. My general impression is that Yahoo! has Google-envy: they want to build a rep where their hiring process is needlessly long, illogical, arbitrary, rude and obscure so they can be just like Google!
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted May 20, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2010 in Sunnyvale, CA (took a day)
While happy with my current job, I got connected to the recruiter through LinkedIn who forwarded my resume to one of the teams. I had a phone interview with Yahoo! Mail Search team. Questions asked were something like finding possible substrings in the string and some C++ concept questions. The interviewer was the worst interviewer I have ever experienced. I was pretty sure that she didn't bother going through my resume before the phone interview. She was very rude and was not paying attention to my answers. At the end, we ran out of time and she didn't let me ask questions because she was in hurry to get off the phone.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Feb 23, 2010
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Feb 2010 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 2 weeks)
First I had a phone interview. In the interview, interviewer asked C++ questions and puzzles. C++ questions were easy (standard questions) and puzzles were little difficult and I never expected puzzles in the phone interview (huh... wasting your minutes by thinking a solution to the puzzle??? ). Anyway, I solved 2 of 3.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Nov 9, 2009
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3.0
Average Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Interviewed and No Offer
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Interviewed Oct 2009 in Santa Clara, CA (took 3 weeks)
the phone interview was quite easy. Standard algorithm questions. Questions on threads, performance analysis of c++ processes on unix / linux systems and some c++ questions on pointers.
The 1:1 interview was little more theoretical on design patterns, and object orientation. I was also asked to design a class and asked to compare c++ v/s java. Other folks asked about my past experiences and how I solved some problems in the past (situational/behavioral).
Interview Questions
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Software Engineer at Yahoo
Posted Aug 22, 2009
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2008 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 1+ week)
The best interview experience in my career, and I've been to quite a few interviews.
After an email, I got a call for a phone screening. For some reason I was expecting HR person, instead talked to the hiring manager. He asked just the right questions that painted an exact picture of my skill level - how much I do know and where are the limits of my knowledge and experience. In general, I'm straightforward and honest person when it comes to interviews, I don't exaggerate my skills to present in a better light. But still it was uncanny how the person asked the questions that will give an accurate idea of me as a developer and employee. Usually you can cheat your way through an interview process, but not with Yahoo.
Then there was an onsite interview with 4 people and the hiring manager again before and after the others, including informal chat over coffee in the excellent Santa Monica Yahoo! Center.
Overall very challenging phone screening and a relaxed and friendly onsite experience.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
I was able to negotiate 5% on top of the offer. Advice: ask for it, what do you have to lose?
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
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