eBay Interview Questions & Reviews in San Jose, CA Area
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Updated Feb 7, 2012 – Interview questions and reviews posted anonymously by interview candidates.
Ratings are reflective of location and job title.
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Difficulty Rating [?] Based on 50 ratings 
“Average” Interview
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Interview Experience [?] Based on 50 ratings
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| 1–10 of 50 eBay Interviews | Sort by |
Software Engineer at eBay
Posted Feb 3, 2012 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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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 Dec 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 2 months)
Got a referral interview from a friend. Had a phone interview. Phone interview was very tough and a lot of java questions. there wasnt any response after that. I waited for almost 10 days and then mailed the person who interviewed me about response. In few minutes i got a response from hr to schedule a onsite interview. There was 5 people whom i met with in ebay office. Interview went positive and the team was excellent. Even before i reached home i got a email from hr that interview was positive and would give me a call on the following week day. There wasnt any call at all. Then a third party company mailed me to fill out application for background check. I did fill in application and they asked me some documents which i sent them. They told me my report will be sent in another 3-4 business days. I waited for almost 2 weeks and mailed hr if there is any updates. He told there is some kind of internal issues going on and he will get back to me on the following week. This has happened 3 weeks before and i haven't got any updates. I also mailed him last week to get updates but no response. So i am gonna accept offer from another company. good bye eBay!
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through an Employee Referral and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Background Check.
More eBay Software Engineer Interviews
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Associate Marketing Manager at eBay
Posted Feb 7, 2012
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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 Oct 2010 in San Jose, CA (took 4+ weeks)
Was contacted by a recruiter. Had several phone interviews. Came in for an all day round of interviews. Had to do a case study. Every person I encountered was friendly and very professional. They seemed smart and interested in their work. But the whole process took a month, from initial contact to offer
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
Offer was what I was expecting
Other Details
I got the interview through a Staffing Agency and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview, a Skills Test and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at eBay
Posted Jan 23, 2012 — 3 of 4 people found this helpful
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4.0
Difficult Interview
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Overall Neutral Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed Dec 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 4+ weeks)
I applied for a JavaScript Engineer position via a generic eBay "we're hiring!" ad on Monster.com.
I got an e-mail and a call quickly from an "outside recruiter" who bubbled about how eBay would do anything to recruit me. But, I've been around so I knew that this was just her job and a sales pitch. eBay hiring is an assembly line: an "outside recruiter" fills the interview funnel by convincing as many people to apply, "internal recruiters" get the resumes from the funnel and decide who to submit to their managers, "phone coordinators" spend all day arranging phone interviews between interviewers and candidates and "in person coordinators" spend all day arranging in-person interviews. So, you have 4 people whose sole job is to organize one portion of the interview. (At least, for the group that I ended up interviewing with.)
I had a 45-minute phone interview with a guy who asked technical questions but didn't make me write code. 20 minutes later, I had another 45-minute phone interview with a girl who asked me technical questions and had me write snippets of code in Google Docs. I did OK (not great) on the first and seemed to say "I don't know" a bunch of times on the second. I figured that I'd blown it and wouldn't hear back and moved on. A few days later, I got a weird call from the (internal) recruiter. They were eager to do an in-person interview but wanted to confirm that I'm interested in the position and that it wasn't too easy.
At the in-person interview, I walked past a big room. It had long desks with keyboards and LCD screens every 4 feet. Each "station" was separated by a separator mounted on the top of the desk. They explained that they are moving away from cubicles to this style which makes it look like a call center or like a study desk at a library with less privacy. But, no, it's not a call center; software developers work here.
Since the engineers have no privacy, I could look across the entire room and see something like 90% of the people were Indian or Pakastani or similar. Here and there, I saw a white or an Asian face but the vast majority were Indian and, during lunch, I saw a big group eating around the large break room table and every single one was Indian.
I had 6 interviews over 5 hours, 45-minutes each. The first guy was likeable; we discussed XSL (from my resume) and he asked me to write reverse a linked list. The second guy was odd, had a thick accent, and would pause for long periods, even though he hadn't finished the question; he asked me to describe (but not code) the maximum sum subsequence algorithm, how I could do the categories tab for eBay and how I would design a stock ticker. The third guy had me describe an algorithm to find the total number of matching pairs in an array. The fourth guy had a thick accent and asked me to write code to implement a queue. The fifth guy was the manager: we got lunch at the eBay cafeteria, came back to the room, talked about my background, then he asked me to work through the ABCDE x 4 = EDCBA. The sixth guy asked me about closure.
When the last guy walked me out, I asked how many interview he does. He says that he does about 3 interviews a week and, if I understood correctly, pretty much every week of his entire career at eBay. He's just a regular software developer so hiring isn't his main job. It shows that they do tons of interviews and it's pretty much an assembly line.
I felt that I did OK (but not great) at the interview but I strongly felt that I stuck out because I wasn't Indian. Everything about my interview felt like I was in India, not only the people but the culture, the way of doing business, the preferences, the interests, everything. Don't they realize that the perfect candidate would be Indian? Why not yield to the obvious and just focus on Indian candidates exclusively?
It seemed like a bad fit so I moved on. A few days later, I got a message on my voicemail and, when I called, they said that they wanted to make an offer. Uh, ok. They said that my relevant experience was not long enough so they'd like to bring me in at lower grade but, as the recruiter said, who cares as long as they can meet my salary demands, right? Uh, I suppose. We discussed my current salary and my salary goals then the recruiter said that she'd get me my offer by the end of the day or by the next morning.
No offer came and I moved on.
A few weeks later (after the holidays), a different eBay recruiter called me out of the blue and said that the same group wanted to offer me the job. He gave a pretty hard sell about all the intangible benefits of the job, like the cafeteria and job security and the eBay brand, so I figured that they were setting me up for a lowball offer. And I was right. They made me an offer and I told them the next morning, "Thank you for your offer but I've decided to decline." I did discuss the offer with my family but they were like, no way, no how.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
The offer was about what I was making now but better benefits and a small amount of stock (maybe worth $5K a year) so I would have been a little better off. They also added a good signing bonus but, of course, that's just for one year. If they had given me a better offer, I'd probably have taken the job. But I actually want to work some place where I'm wanted; I felt that the lowball offer was because they didn't care if I joined or not. I also felt that I didn't fit in because there were so many Indians.
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview and a 1:1 Interview.
More eBay Software Engineer Interviews
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
G&A at eBay
Posted Dec 19, 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 May 2009 in San Jose, CA (took 2 weeks)
Standard initial communications through external recruiter, good organization and planning for interview, met with in-house recruiter number for a brief sit-down interview followed by 2 follow-up sessions (each with 3-4 interviewers). Impressed with collegiality and candor of most interviewers. Bit tough to get an accurate picture of what the workload and areas of responsibility were going to be.
Interview Questions
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?
Staff Software Engineer at eBay
Posted Nov 27, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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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 Jul 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 4+ weeks)
I was approached by a recruiter who found me on LinkedIn, who passed me to an internal recruiter once I expressed interest in the position and the company. I had a brief 30-minute phone screen with the hiring manager, who asked me some fairly light technical questions before ending the call. I received an invitation to interview onsite from the internal recruiter shortly after the phone screen.
I ended up coming onsite about a week and a half later to interview. I was set to interview for 5 hours with 6 people, but it ended up being about 6 hours and 45 minutes with 7 people (I'm glad that I took the entire day off work). I had 7 1:1 interviews that lasted about 45 minutes each. They were very intense and I was grilled quite extensively on my technical expertise.
At the end, I wasn't sure how I did because there were a few questions that I felt that I could have answered better. However, I was impressed at the intelligence and deep knowledge of my interviewers, and got the impression that the company and team would be a place that I could learn and grow.
The end-to-end process from initial contact to offer seemed to take longer than at other companies, so don't be surprised at this.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
A couple of days after interviewing, I received a call from the recruiter that they would be making me an offer to join the team with which I'd interviewed. However, they wanted to bring me in at a level that was lower than the role that I applied for, since I had little previous experience in the particular field. The compensation package was also slightly less than what I was making at my previous employer at that time.
I expressed that I was reluctant to accept the position under the terms presented; that I would feel more comfortable coming in at a higher level and salary. The recruiter passed me on to a Senior Director with whom I had not previously interviewed, and he and I had several conversations about the expectations of the higher role, career aspirations, etc. It was nerve-wracking but I appreciated the opportunity to plead my case to a senior executive and negotiate my future at the company. In the end, I ended up getting everything I wanted and took the final offer. Don't be afraid to ask for what you want and what you think is fair!
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Background Check.
More eBay Staff Software Engineer Interviews
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Software Engineer at eBay
Posted Oct 28, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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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 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 2+ weeks)
I got a linkedin request from ebay hr for position available for Xcommerce one of their companies. I had a telephonic interview which went well and interviewee told me next step is we will ask you to come to San Jose. I did not heard back from them so mailed back. Now another guy calls me up to say there is position available for Quality Engineer right now not SE. I told I am not interested, I want to work in Product Development team only no QA stuff. Again they arranged for another telephonic round with another lead. That also went well, now this guy again arranged telephonic interview with his manager. That round was ok for me and did not hear back from them.
I still do not understand why I had three telephonic interview rounds, looks like the recruitment process is following any particular process.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Staffing Agency and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview.
More eBay Software Engineer Interviews
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Site Analytics Manager at eBay
Posted Oct 27, 2011
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Negative Experience
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Received and Declined Offer
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Interviewed May 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 1+ week)
The recruiters were pretty quick and responsive but never asked about my current compensation
The initial phone interview with the hiring manager was good but heavily focused on my technical and analytics capabilities (read math puzzles)
The second phone interview with the hiring manager's peer was heavily focused on my technical and analytical capabilities (read more math puzzles)
My onsite interview with 3 peer level managers, 2 senior managers, and 1 director was focused on my technical and analytical capabilities (read 45 minutes of math puzzles per interviewer)
Had a lunch with the hiring manager during the onsite marathon interview, and quickly realized that the hiring manager was very green when it came to managing staff.
After acing every math problem and excellent display of my analytical prowless i was offered the job, the hiring manager was trying to do the job of the recruiter and was pushing for start date and having me commit to giving my current employer 1 week's notice all this before even discussing compensation. Once the compensation offer was communicated it was way below my current compensation, and they were unwilling to negotiate on any term.
Interview Questions
Reason for Declining
Far below expectations, unwilling to negotiate, hiring manager inexperience and attitude
Other Details
I Applied Online and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Presentation, an IQ/Intelligence Test, a Skills Test and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Global Sourcing Manager at eBay
Posted Oct 17, 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 Sep 2011 in Sunnyvale, CA (took 2 days)
Very encouraging 1/2 day interview with 4 different people following a couple of phone interviews during a couple of weeks. Interview seemed to go very good and I was expecting a second to come to an offer. However, following up over a two week period was told they had "other candidates more qualified."
Best advice, don't get you hopes up. That being said, company and people seemed great and I was looking forward to working there.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I applied In-Person and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Group/Panel Interview.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Senior Analytics at eBay
Posted Sep 22, 2011 — 1 of 1 people found this helpful
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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 Sep 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 6 weeks)
I put in a resume a the Joint Statistical meetings held the first week of August. I was called by the director of the department at eBay. I had a 1/2 hour interview then was invited to the interview site for more questions. I had 5 hours of one on one questioning. I was turned down because I did not have enough real world customer experience. The interviews were pleasant and relaxing. Some technical questions.
Interview Questions
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview and a Presentation.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
Inappropriate?
Product Marketing Manager at eBay
Posted Aug 30, 2011 — 2 of 2 people found this helpful
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2.0
Easy Interview
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Overall Positive Experience
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Received and Accepted Offer
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Interviewed Aug 2011 in San Jose, CA (took 1+ week)
very easy interview process. the recruiter called me and asked if I could take a call from the hiring manager the following day. After the phone interview, I was invited down to SJ to meet with the hiring manager and 3 team members. I was invited back a second time 3 days later to meet with 3 more team members.
The time from the first phone call to offer was about 10 days. the interview process was easy. Of course they want someone that understand marketing, but I assume for this role it was more about compatibility with the other team members as well as being confident enough to speak up in meetings while having the ability to push back on action items of needed.
The team was amazing. the only difficult part was back to back interviews for 3 hours over a few days.
Interview Questions
Negotiation Details
I was offered an amount and I accepted it.
Other Details
I got the interview through a Recruiter and the interview consisted of a Phone Interview, a 1:1 Interview, a Group/Panel Interview and a Background Check.
Helpful Interview?
Yes |
No
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