Software Engineer Interview Experience - Mountain View, California
August 1, 2014
Negative ExperienceNo Offer
Process
2 telephonic followed by 6 in-house algo/design/coding interviews.
- How to find if nodes in a graph are exactly 1, 2, or 3 edges apart. How would you distribute a graph across machines?
- Given a set of characters and a string, find the smallest substring which contains all characters.
- Implement a delayed scheduler for jobs using pthread APIs (mutex/cond_var).
- You have a bunch of numbers coming in, and given a window size, how would you save numbers so that you can return a number if present in the window and provide the average for the current window.
- Manager round: You are given a bunch of machines with services running on them, how would you improve things. Very vague design talk.
- Reverse words in a string.
- Implement decimal to Roman and vice versa.
Questions
The two-person interview panel system at LinkedIn (one senior, one junior) is peculiar.
It is the interviewee's responsibility to manage time during the interview.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 63 interview experiences for the LinkedIn Software Engineer role in Mountain View, California.
Success Rate
24%
Pass Rate
LinkedIn's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Mountain View, California is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive49%
Neutral27%
Negative24%
Candidates reported having very good feelings for LinkedIn's Software Engineer interview process in Mountain View, California.
LinkedIn Work Experiences
4.0
Great culture, but lack of innovation
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
July 14, 2021
Pros: Great culture. Great care of employees and true care of members (users).
Cons: Plays way too safe and innovation is weak.
Upper management is all about padding each other on the back and lacks responsibility.
4.0
Amazing company to work for
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
November 11, 2013
Pros: Amazing work culture
Good work-life balance
Smart people around
Hackdays
Food
Speaker series
Learning portal
Ongoing bootcamps
Cons: Sometimes you might think the company is laid back when it misses a deadline.
2.0
Boring Stack + New Toxic Culture
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
November 6, 2023
Pros: Pay is good. There used to be cool things like half Fridays.
Included: Microsoft discounts, benefits.
Cons: The work culture at the moment is very toxic. I never felt ill will towards my direct team, but it's essentially your manager and peers vs. the upper rungs of leadership.
You get to wait for last-minute decisions and opaque messaging from leadership together.
They spew things about growth and learning but could care less. Just focus on your CPPs and reviews, ignore anything that does not support that.
Double-speak is like air or water at LinkedIn, especially from the CEO and C-Suite.
WLB went down the drain. I went from working like 40+ hours a week. I'd do some overtime occasionally before ramps and for on-calls at times, but it was decent.
Near the end, it was not uncommon for me to wake up, log on remotely as soon as I woke up until like 9 or 10 at night, rinse and repeat.
They will announce initiatives for new tech and the like every blue moon, but very rarely allocate time for teams to execute any of it.
Do not be surprised if a project you are working on is canceled and reorganized.
- 4.0Great culture, but lack of innovationSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesJuly 14, 2021Pros: Great culture. Great care of employees and true care of members (users).Cons: Plays way too safe and innovation is weak. Upper management is all about padding each other on the back and lacks responsibility.
- 4.0Amazing company to work forSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesNovember 11, 2013Pros: Amazing work culture Good work-life balance Smart people around Hackdays Food Speaker series Learning portal Ongoing bootcampsCons: Sometimes you might think the company is laid back when it misses a deadline.
- 2.0Boring Stack + New Toxic CultureSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeMountain View, California, United StatesNovember 6, 2023Pros: Pay is good. There used to be cool things like half Fridays. Included: Microsoft discounts, benefits.Cons: The work culture at the moment is very toxic. I never felt ill will towards my direct team, but it's essentially your manager and peers vs. the upper rungs of leadership. You get to wait for last-minute decisions and opaque messaging from leadership together. They spew things about growth and learning but could care less. Just focus on your CPPs and reviews, ignore anything that does not support that. Double-speak is like air or water at LinkedIn, especially from the CEO and C-Suite. WLB went down the drain. I went from working like 40+ hours a week. I'd do some overtime occasionally before ramps and for on-calls at times, but it was decent. Near the end, it was not uncommon for me to wake up, log on remotely as soon as I woke up until like 9 or 10 at night, rinse and repeat. They will announce initiatives for new tech and the like every blue moon, but very rarely allocate time for teams to execute any of it. Do not be surprised if a project you are working on is canceled and reorganized.
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