Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience - Milan, Italy
Process
I was contacted by a recruiter via LinkedIn.
In the first call, I specified that I'm a manager and so I'm not coding as I used to. I also specified that I have more experience as a BE developer and my tech stack is different from Klarna's.
The recruiter told me that, given my experience, my current tech stack wasn't a problem, so I decided to continue. To be honest, the company seemed very interesting in terms of organization, way of working, mission, and salary.
I specified that I don't have any problem studying a new language or refreshing my knowledge of JS. They have this "pipeline thing" where you could fit for different roles during the process.
The problem is that it wasn't clear at some point which role I was applying for (EM or SSE).
These were the steps:
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Call with recruiter (passed) Asked me: Past experiences, current role, current stack. They'll explain how the company works, how they do things, and why.
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Logical test (18 questions to solve in 15 minutes) (passed) A quick logical test where you have to understand the pattern by looking at some images.
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Offline code challenge (passed) Three tasks to be solved using a language you want in a remote tool; unfortunately, not all of them are available for all the tasks.
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Behavioral interview (passed?) Basically a face-to-face interview with a PM about Klarna's leadership principles. The recruiter contacted me a few days before to send me some material to study (PDFs, links, videos) about this and for the tech interview as well.
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Tech interview (failed) Face-to-face interview with an EM and a Senior Dev. They asked me to explain in detail a project I recently did, pretending I had to onboard a new colleague. The second part was a live coding session where I had to find an algorithm to solve a specific problem. Honestly, I had just 20-25 minutes to do that. They wanted me to do it in JS, but I always specified I have no strong experience with it, so I used another language. They seemed not very happy about this choice and didn't help too much during this part of the interview.
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Architectural interview (didn't do)
According to the final feedback after steps 4 and 5, they decided not to proceed with my application. I think because I failed the live code challenge and didn't use JS (nobody told me I had to before this step). Another reason, according to them, was also that I'm not a JS developer.
Okay, the key point here is they contacted me for a position I wasn't suited for since the very beginning, so why did they decide to proceed until the fifth step?
The process is very long and demanding. Some steps are totally useless, especially 2 and 3, since I never used JS during the code challenges, so they could have stopped the process there.
I mean, if they want JS pro developers, they should avoid contacting people with different backgrounds/tech stacks.
Last but not least: days pass with no updates when a step is done, so be patient.
Questions
Past experiences Current tech stack
When did you apply one of our leadership principles? (You must know them to answer)
Tell me something that you did and you would avoid doing now, related to a problem you had.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 7 interview experiences for the Klarna Senior Software Engineer role in Milan, Italy.
Success Rate
Klarna's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in Milan, Italy is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Klarna's Senior Software Engineer interview process in Milan, Italy.
Klarna Work Experiences
- 1.0Every day at Klarna is the worst one so farSenior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeStockholm, StockholmDecember 18, 2024Pros: Not many other companies provide the ability to work at this scale. Depending on what you end up working on, your work has the potential to affect millions of people and drive serious revenue. It's a recognizable brand that will look good on your resume. Many people that have had a successful career at Klarna have gone on to leadership positions in other companies afterwards, and building a network while you are here can lead to good opportunities in the future.Cons: Upper management actively despise their employees and do their best to force attrition and burnout by removing perks, enforcing unpopular policies, and applying more and more pressure. There is absolutely no investment into the employees, such as via training, mentoring, or even providing basic resources needed for the job. The result is a cutthroat environment where people compete, rather than collaborate, in fear of losing their jobs. It was not always like this, but it has gotten worse and worse over the years. Because of the immense pressure from above, middle management is rife with politics, and getting anything done requires navigating a sea of toxicity. You would do best to try to stay out of it as much as possible. This is not necessarily a reflection of the individuals, but of the environment they find themselves in and the pressure that is put on them. Where previously teams had a lot of autonomy in driving the direction of the product they work on, there is now much more micromanagement, and the only way to not find yourself on your way out is to be a yes-man. There is an extreme focus on standardization in tech, which has real benefits, but a drawback is that the average engineer will rarely get to do any actual engineering. If you are happy building products by integrating components, then you will likely enjoy this, but if you want to gain a deeper understanding of how technology works, you may find this frustrating.
- 3.0Messy and ChaoticSenior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeBerlinJune 15, 2024Pros: - Cool product - Nice teammatesCons: _ Messy management _ Quantity over quality
- 4.0Nice company to workSenior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeStockholm, StockholmMarch 5, 2025Pros: Really nice and talented people to work with. Everyday a new challenge could arise in which you will learn more and more.Cons: Too many incidents. If I compare that to previous companies that I worked in the past, things were more stable.
