Post a Salary or Review

Advanced

Yahoo Senior Software Engineer Interview Questions & Reviews

Post an Interview

Web: www.yahoo.com | HQ: Sunnyvale, CA

Connections

Updated May 17, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.

Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 17 ratings

3.1

“Average” Interview

Interview Experience [?] Based on 17 ratings

Positive	41%
Neutral	29%
Negative	29%

Yahoo has 65,802 connections on Glassdoor

See Who You Know

Hide Filters

11–17 of 17 Yahoo Interviews

Sort by

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

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

write a program that finds all repeated substrings in the string and provide the complexity of this program. how can you make it to perform better in time and memory?

Answer Question

Other Details

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

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

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

What is a Copy Constructor, Virtual functions, destructor etc.

Answer Question

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?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

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

benefits of object orientation? Why object orientation? Expect very specific responses.

Answer Question

Design patterns - names of the specific patterns, and their abstraction and their higher level groupings, names etc.

Answer Question

Exception handling in C++, object splicing, and stack unwinding.

Answer Question

Other Details

I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

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

Did you have a chance to hit the beach before the interview? :)

Answer Question

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?

3.0

Average Interview

Overall Negative Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed Aug 2009 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 4 days)

I had 2 rounds of telephonic interviews:
Round 1:
Basic C++ questions
- Difference between new and malloc
- Virtual functions
- VTable
- Virtual Destructors
- REST/SOAP
- Difference between POST and GET

Round 2:
- Difference between thread and process.
- Spinlocks
- Semaphores
- Segmentation faults
- Shared memory programming for interprocess communication

Interview Questions

Linux platform specific questions: What exact error is thrown when access violations happen?

View Answers (2)

Other Details

The interview consisted of a Phone Interview.

Helpful Interview?

Yes | No

Inappropriate?

4.0

Difficult Interview

Overall Positive Experience

Interviewed and No Offer

Interviewed May 2009 (took 1 week)

Did not applied directly, received email from the internal staffing department, set initial phone screening in about a few days, it went well: were basic technical background questions about c++/java. The onsite interview was in a week with seven people (five engineers, staffing person and group director). The engineering questions were mostly about data structures and algorithms complexity, several tasks required white board coding, almost nothing regarding previous job experience, accomplishments and the like. People were friendly and very intelligent. The overall experience from interview: despite the outcome (did not go to the next level) it was very educational.

Interview Questions

How to determine whether the stack grows up or down?

View Answers (1)

remove the node from the single linked list having only pointer to that node

View Answers (2)

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?

1.0

Very Easy Interview

Overall Neutral Experience

Received and Accepted Offer

Interviewed Sep 2008 (took a day)

its ok. pretty ordinary. nothing spectacular. i don't think the interviewers were very chorent in the sense, i doubt if they shared their feedback between themselves while the interviews were in progress. at least, it didn't seem like it.