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Software Engineer Interview Experience

July 31, 2026
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I applied through another source.

Hooked in by a recruiter via LinkedIn. Received a 20-page interview process manual.

First coding screen session (great interviewer - helpful hints, mostly quiet).

Moved on to "Accelerated Technicals":

  • another live coding
  • system design
  • bring something awesome

Personal assessment: I bombed the second coding screen. System design went quite well. BSA went well, but there were a huge number of behavioral questions, which I didn't expect, but answered OK.

The second live coding was the worst, because the interviewer was completely insecure. When I was silent for >5 seconds, he interpreted that as “he’s stuck” and in his mind tried to be helpful by immediately asking what I’m thinking about. This was very disruptive to my creative process.

In my view, I ended up underperforming where I could have done better were it not for the constant interruptions. The recruiter continues to exhibit arrogant, dismissive, and unprofessional behavior and ghosts me to this day, despite twice confirming that I can get feedback when asked after the interview process. I left him my number and simply gave up on him.

Really rude and unprofessional treatment (confirming what other people wrote here). The last interviewer was visibly annoyed with my last question about how engineers on-ramp into Rust; her answer was peeved and evasive.

Questions

Huffman coding task on human genome data. (Very much in vein of LC questions for class design)

System design: crop monitoring drone system (sends images to farmers):

  • How do you monitor the system?
  • How do you scale it to more drones?

BSA:

  • How did you know your project was done?
  • How do you elicit requirements?

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 22 interview experiences for the Helsing Software Engineer role.

Success Rate

9%
Pass Rate

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

Experience Rating

Positive36%
Neutral18%
Negative45%

Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Helsing's Software Engineer interview process.

Helsing Work Experiences