Guidewire

Software Engineer II Interview Experience - Canada

February 1, 2022

Neutral ExperienceGot Offer

Process

The interview process consisted of:

Initial HR Screen + Salary Expectations
Online OA
Hiring Manager Interview
2 Technical Interviews
1 Behavioral Interview

Interviewers were nice, but I ultimately decided to decline the company due to other offers. I also declined because the HM/HR was inconsistent with salary expectations. I stated my expectations, and they confirmed it was an acceptable range, but I was lowballed by 20%. Furthermore, the HM/HR was deceptive regarding TC calculations. No one in the industry includes refreshers and performance bonuses in the TC calculation.

I'm sure Guidewire has great and smart people working there, but I recommend being more transparent with salary expectations. Candidates need to take time off work for interviews; not everyone has the time to go through six rounds of interviews and be lowballed on salary.

Questions

Q: OOD Questions

Q: Standard Leetcode Medium (Strings)

All questions required Java.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Guidewire Software Engineer II role in Canada.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Guidewire's interview process for their Software Engineer II roles in Canada is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%

Neutral100%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Guidewire's Software Engineer II interview process in Canada.

Guidewire Work Experiences

Great Mentorship, Tc Higher

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

San Mateo, California, United States

September 25, 2025

Pros: Good mentorship and company direction.

Cons: Not based in SF. TC could be higher.

Great Mentorship, Tc Higher

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

San Mateo, California, United States

September 25, 2025

Pros: Good mentorship and company direction.

Cons: Not based in SF. TC could be higher.

The PDO department used to be a great place to work

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

December 17, 2024

Pros: Great work-life balance and nice office space. 8 mandatory office days per month. Great colleagues. Great benefits: * Medical * Dental * Optical * Wellness * Mobile Phone * Home Internet

Cons: Salary from above market rate has been adjusted to market rate. Low salary increment. No room for salary negotiation during compensation review sessions. Removal of Long Term Incentives for low-level engineers demoralized a lot of long-term employees. Fully remote to mandatory 8 days in the office per month. A lot of work with internal-only technologies (Gosu) makes it harder to grow as a Java engineer. Hired as a Java Engineer but worked as a full-stack developer. Working on many projects in parallel. Personally, I think this company is not a good place for engineers starting their career due to the use of proprietary internal technologies. But for older engineers at the later stages of their career, where this does not matter to them, everything else would be perfect.

The PDO department used to be a great place to work

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

December 17, 2024

Pros: Great work-life balance and nice office space. 8 mandatory office days per month. Great colleagues. Great benefits: * Medical * Dental * Optical * Wellness * Mobile Phone * Home Internet

Cons: Salary from above market rate has been adjusted to market rate. Low salary increment. No room for salary negotiation during compensation review sessions. Removal of Long Term Incentives for low-level engineers demoralized a lot of long-term employees. Fully remote to mandatory 8 days in the office per month. A lot of work with internal-only technologies (Gosu) makes it harder to grow as a Java engineer. Hired as a Java Engineer but worked as a full-stack developer. Working on many projects in parallel. Personally, I think this company is not a good place for engineers starting their career due to the use of proprietary internal technologies. But for older engineers at the later stages of their career, where this does not matter to them, everything else would be perfect.

Interesting work, not the best salary

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

Kraków, Poland

October 24, 2023

Pros: It's a good opportunity to work with recent technologies developing the company's own products. I really like how things are created from scratch, and you can be part of it. Working hours and days off are really flexible. People are great and helpful, too. From the perspective of a person that started as an intern, I've been able to learn a lot, mostly because of people in my immediate surroundings.

Cons: I think that promoting processes are not well described, so you can never know if you're going to be promoted. There are two possibilities during the year to get promoted. You may be trying your best and take lots of responsibilities, only to end up not being promoted, with a comment: "You did your best, I have nothing to fault, but we'll try again in six months." This happens while knowing that other people with similar seniority and responsibilities got promoted. Some administrative processes take a long time to be set, i.e., paid on-call duties that have been recently introduced after more than two years of negotiation and establishing processes.

Interesting work, not the best salary

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

Kraków, Poland

October 24, 2023

Pros: It's a good opportunity to work with recent technologies developing the company's own products. I really like how things are created from scratch, and you can be part of it. Working hours and days off are really flexible. People are great and helpful, too. From the perspective of a person that started as an intern, I've been able to learn a lot, mostly because of people in my immediate surroundings.

Cons: I think that promoting processes are not well described, so you can never know if you're going to be promoted. There are two possibilities during the year to get promoted. You may be trying your best and take lots of responsibilities, only to end up not being promoted, with a comment: "You did your best, I have nothing to fault, but we'll try again in six months." This happens while knowing that other people with similar seniority and responsibilities got promoted. Some administrative processes take a long time to be set, i.e., paid on-call duties that have been recently introduced after more than two years of negotiation and establishing processes.

Great Mentorship, Tc Higher

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

San Mateo, California, United States

September 25, 2025

Pros: Good mentorship and company direction.

Cons: Not based in SF. TC could be higher.

5.0
Great Mentorship, Tc Higher
Software Engineer II • Current Employee
San Mateo, California, United States
September 25, 2025
Pros: Good mentorship and company direction.
Cons: Not based in SF. TC could be higher.

The PDO department used to be a great place to work

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

December 17, 2024

Pros: Great work-life balance and nice office space. 8 mandatory office days per month. Great colleagues. Great benefits: * Medical * Dental * Optical * Wellness * Mobile Phone * Home Internet

Cons: Salary from above market rate has been adjusted to market rate. Low salary increment. No room for salary negotiation during compensation review sessions. Removal of Long Term Incentives for low-level engineers demoralized a lot of long-term employees. Fully remote to mandatory 8 days in the office per month. A lot of work with internal-only technologies (Gosu) makes it harder to grow as a Java engineer. Hired as a Java Engineer but worked as a full-stack developer. Working on many projects in parallel. Personally, I think this company is not a good place for engineers starting their career due to the use of proprietary internal technologies. But for older engineers at the later stages of their career, where this does not matter to them, everything else would be perfect.

3.0
The PDO department used to be a great place to work
Software Engineer II • Current Employee
Kuala Lumpur, Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
December 17, 2024
Pros: Great work-life balance and nice office space. 8 mandatory office days per month. Great colleagues. Great benefits: * Medical * Dental * Optical * Wellness * Mobile Phone * Home Internet
Cons: Salary from above market rate has been adjusted to market rate. Low salary increment. No room for salary negotiation during compensation review sessions. Removal of Long Term Incentives for low-level engineers demoralized a lot of long-term employees. Fully remote to mandatory 8 days in the office per month. A lot of work with internal-only technologies (Gosu) makes it harder to grow as a Java engineer. Hired as a Java Engineer but worked as a full-stack developer. Working on many projects in parallel. Personally, I think this company is not a good place for engineers starting their career due to the use of proprietary internal technologies. But for older engineers at the later stages of their career, where this does not matter to them, everything else would be perfect.

Interesting work, not the best salary

Software Engineer II • Current Employee

Kraków, Poland

October 24, 2023

Pros: It's a good opportunity to work with recent technologies developing the company's own products. I really like how things are created from scratch, and you can be part of it. Working hours and days off are really flexible. People are great and helpful, too. From the perspective of a person that started as an intern, I've been able to learn a lot, mostly because of people in my immediate surroundings.

Cons: I think that promoting processes are not well described, so you can never know if you're going to be promoted. There are two possibilities during the year to get promoted. You may be trying your best and take lots of responsibilities, only to end up not being promoted, with a comment: "You did your best, I have nothing to fault, but we'll try again in six months." This happens while knowing that other people with similar seniority and responsibilities got promoted. Some administrative processes take a long time to be set, i.e., paid on-call duties that have been recently introduced after more than two years of negotiation and establishing processes.

4.0
Interesting work, not the best salary
Software Engineer II • Current Employee
Kraków, Poland
October 24, 2023
Pros: It's a good opportunity to work with recent technologies developing the company's own products. I really like how things are created from scratch, and you can be part of it. Working hours and days off are really flexible. People are great and helpful, too. From the perspective of a person that started as an intern, I've been able to learn a lot, mostly because of people in my immediate surroundings.
Cons: I think that promoting processes are not well described, so you can never know if you're going to be promoted. There are two possibilities during the year to get promoted. You may be trying your best and take lots of responsibilities, only to end up not being promoted, with a comment: "You did your best, I have nothing to fault, but we'll try again in six months." This happens while knowing that other people with similar seniority and responsibilities got promoted. Some administrative processes take a long time to be set, i.e., paid on-call duties that have been recently introduced after more than two years of negotiation and establishing processes.

Guidewire Interview Questions

Construct the Longest New String

You're given counts of 'A', 'B', and 'AB' strings. Combine them to construct the longest possible string where no two adjacent characters are the same.

Greedy Algorithms

Minimum Moves to Spread Stones Over Grid

You're given a grid where some cells have stones and others are empty. Find the minimum number of moves to redistribute the stones so that each cell has exactly one stone.

ArraysGreedy Algorithms

Minimum Number of Operations to Sort a Binary Tree by Level

You're given a binary tree. Determine the minimum number of swaps needed at each level to sort the node values in ascending order.

TreesArraysGreedy Algorithms

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