LinkedIn's interview process is very transparent. Before every interview, I was given the names and LinkedIn profiles of everyone I would speak to. My recruiter also called me before each interview step to discuss expectations and share preparation tips.

Even if you don't end up working with them, you'll probably at least come away feeling much more knowledgeable and prepared for technical interviews in general!

I noticed two unusual aspects about LinkedIn's software engineer interviews: (1) Most interviews are 2-on-1, with both interviewers submitting feedback. (2) Their coding questions apparently come from a shared company-wide repository. All the coding questions I received were identical (verbatim) to ones that have already been posted here or on other sites. I didn't know this upfront, but I realized it when I looked them up after my interviews.

My interview process was:

Technical phone screen:

• 2 coding questions

On-site interview:

• 2 coding / algorithms
• 1 system design
• 1 technical communication
• 1 behavioral / cultural fit (host manager)
• 1 lunch interview (note: the lunch interviewer also submits feedback)

The coding questions were all very easy. I would say they were of slightly below-average difficulty compared to many other major Silicon Valley tech companies. I got the impression that the LinkedIn folks pay much more attention to your communication skills and design thinking than your raw problem-solving ability.

The technical communication interview was fun. Basically, I was asked to talk through one of my previous projects/systems, as if I were orienting a new developer on my team. It felt just like a real engineering discussion at work. Likewise, the host manager interview was really relaxed, focusing mostly on probing my resume and past experience, and the typical behavioral-type questions ("tell me about a time when...").

The system design interview was probably the most challenging aspect of the process. LinkedIn is a web-scale company, after all, so you need to have at least some basic familiarity with building distributed systems and making architectural design trade-offs in that context. Of all the components of the on-site interview, I would recommend spending more time preparing well for this one.

I definitely came away with a very positive impression of LinkedIn. All the interviewers I met were very friendly and smart, and all of them talked about how they loved the highly collaborative culture at LinkedIn. Definitely give these folks a shot if you have the opportunity.

I cannot disclose details due to an NDA. However, as mentioned above, LinkedIn appears to have a shared, company-wide repository of coding questions. If you search on this and other sites, you'll likely find most of their coding questions beforehand.

It seems they are much more interested in your communication and design thinking skills anyway, not just whether you 'solve' a problem.