Software Developer Interview — IBM (On-Campus) Location: Bengaluru Interviewed: September 2025

I attended IBM’s on-campus hiring process for a Software Developer role. The entire process had four rounds: an online assessment, a technical interview, a managerial interview, and an HR round.

Round 1: Online Assessment The HackerRank test contained two coding questions based on arrays, hash maps, and linked lists. Time management was important because the questions required optimal solutions. I cleared this round and received the next-round email after about 20 days.

Round 2: Technical Interview This round focused on core computer science subjects. Questions were asked from OOP (abstraction, inheritance, etc.), database normalization, linked lists, OS scheduling, deadlocks, and basic Docker concepts. I was also asked to explain how to delete a middle node in a doubly linked list. The interviewer mainly checked clarity of explanation and understanding of fundamentals.

Round 3: Managerial Interview This round included questions about my projects, the architecture I used, challenges I faced, and how I approached debugging issues. There were also simple questions on test-case design and threading. The interviewer evaluated problem-solving ability and communication.

Round 4: HR Discussion This round covered standard HR questions such as motivation for IBM, strengths, weaknesses, and career goals. It was mostly conversational.

Overall Experience The process was smooth and well-structured. Interviewers were polite and focused on fundamentals rather than very advanced topics. Preparing OOP, DBMS, OS, Linked Lists, and basic DevOps helped a lot.

Advice for Candidates Understand core concepts clearly, practice coding, and be ready to explain your project architecture and thought process.

They asked me to explain how to delete a middle node from a doubly linked list, including how pointers should be updated and how edge cases, like head and tail deletion, are handled.