Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at LinkedIn with 3.1 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 54.1% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 23 days to get hired, when considering 315 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at LinkedIn overall takes an average of 28 days.
Common stages of the interview process at LinkedIn as a Software Engineer according to 315 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 48%
One on one interview: 19%
Skills test: 12%
Group panel interview: 8%
Presentation: 6%
Background check: 3%
Personality test: 2%
IQ intelligence test: 1%
Other: 1%
Drug test: 1%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at LinkedIn (New York, NY) in Jan 2016
Interview
I applied through both internal referral and online. Shortly after we hooked up I attended the phone interview. I was asked a simple coding question and some machine learning and system design questions. The interviewer sounded impressed.
They arranged the on-site interview with me after Xmas vacation. It was at their NYC office and it's from 10am to 5pm. About 3 interviews had 2 interviewers attended, the others 1. About 3 interviews in the afternoon are remote from their CA office. Most of the questions are system design related to the products they're working on, which I feel are hard to prepare beforehand and tricky to answer. Coding and algorithm questions are relatively few but some were impressively hard.
Note the entire process can be very tiring, because 1) it's from 10am to 5pm, 2) most of them require writing on white board a lot, and 3) their office at Empire State building requires authority to pass the door between interview room and restroom. In fact I didn't go to the restroom between remote interviews because I couldn't find someone to hold the door for me.
I waited for several weeks and also tried follow-up mails, but didn't hear back from them at all. About 4 weeks later I just decided to call them directly and finally learned that I'm no longer considered.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
For on-site interview, most of the questions are system design related to the products they're working on, which I feel are hard to prepare beforehand and tricky to answer. Coding and algorithm questions are relatively few but some were impressively hard.
The interview process started with a screening round featuring one LeetCode medium problem and an SQL challenge. This was followed by a comprehensive onsite with five rounds: a LeetCode coding challenge, an SQL assessment, a system design interview, a hiring manager conversation to evaluate cultural fit, and finally a team matching phase to find the right team.
Interviewed for an SDE role. The process was well-organized and the recruiters were responsive throughout. That said, the technical rounds were significantly more challenging than expected — definitely come prepared to go deep. Overall a valuable experience regardless of the outcome.
That was a real stroke of luck — when I got to the coding round and encountered a question on finding the maximum subarray sum, I had literally seen this exact problem on prachub.com a few days earlier. The interview kicked off with a recruiter screen, followed by a technical phone interview. It was intense, especially with the focus on algorithms and data structures. I also faced some behavioral questions that challenged my experience. After a final onsite round, I received an offer and happily accepted. Overall, it was tough but rewarding.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given an integer array nums, find the contiguous subarray (containing at least one number) which has the largest sum and return its sum. Walk through Kadane's algorithm and explain the O(n) approach.