LinkedIn

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Mountain View, California

September 1, 2015

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I had a good experience with the recruiter.

The phone interview, however, went pretty bizarre.

I banged out an optimal solution in ten minutes. Given that there were two interviewers, it was a mistake that the inexperienced one was in charge because he then started to ask me to find a suboptimal solution.

Seriously?

I was then asking him stuff like, "Did you have a running time in mind for the suboptimal way?"

By the time a second phone interview rolled around, I thankfully got a job offer from their next-door neighbor.

Questions

Find combinations of integer sums.

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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

Best place to learn and experiment with new ideas

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

October 23, 2013

Pros: I joined LinkedIn as an NCG and absolutely loved my past 1.5 years there. I was given more responsibilities and allowed to make mistakes. I also got the opportunity to learn a lot of new things.

Cons: It's a developing company. The codebase is immature, and the standards are fairly low.

Best place to learn and experiment with new ideas

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

October 23, 2013

Pros: I joined LinkedIn as an NCG and absolutely loved my past 1.5 years there. I was given more responsibilities and allowed to make mistakes. I also got the opportunity to learn a lot of new things.

Cons: It's a developing company. The codebase is immature, and the standards are fairly low.

Fun Perks, Smart People, Fast Growth

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

October 17, 2014

Pros: The perks are awesome. Here, we have persons who know how to have fun. Work-life balance depends on your ambition. With overwhelming opportunities to learn new technologies, know smart and experienced people, investigate product and system designs, and evaluate and build your own ideas, I sometimes got lost in what to do in our free time, such as inDay. We are encouraged to ask the company for whatever we expect and be brave to transform ourselves. LinkedIn is an immense platform for all employees. As long as you are actively engaged, your gains will be incredible.

Cons: A little bit worried about the company expansion, which might have some negative effect on the culture. But I have the confidence that we will keep it right! We are still in a startup mode. To implement something, it might take a long time to investigate the huge codebase for what you want without good documentation and proper guidance, which slows down the speed to some extent.

Fun Perks, Smart People, Fast Growth

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

October 17, 2014

Pros: The perks are awesome. Here, we have persons who know how to have fun. Work-life balance depends on your ambition. With overwhelming opportunities to learn new technologies, know smart and experienced people, investigate product and system designs, and evaluate and build your own ideas, I sometimes got lost in what to do in our free time, such as inDay. We are encouraged to ask the company for whatever we expect and be brave to transform ourselves. LinkedIn is an immense platform for all employees. As long as you are actively engaged, your gains will be incredible.

Cons: A little bit worried about the company expansion, which might have some negative effect on the culture. But I have the confidence that we will keep it right! We are still in a startup mode. To implement something, it might take a long time to investigate the huge codebase for what you want without good documentation and proper guidance, which slows down the speed to some extent.

Joining as New Grad

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

Pros: - Seem to have lots of high-impact projects ongoing. - Relatively decent work-life balance. - Supportive team environment. - Competitive pay for new grad level.

Cons: - Career growth seems to vary a lot by team. - A lot of tech debt for newer projects.

Joining as New Grad

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

Pros: - Seem to have lots of high-impact projects ongoing. - Relatively decent work-life balance. - Supportive team environment. - Competitive pay for new grad level.

Cons: - Career growth seems to vary a lot by team. - A lot of tech debt for newer projects.

Best place to learn and experiment with new ideas

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

October 23, 2013

Pros: I joined LinkedIn as an NCG and absolutely loved my past 1.5 years there. I was given more responsibilities and allowed to make mistakes. I also got the opportunity to learn a lot of new things.

Cons: It's a developing company. The codebase is immature, and the standards are fairly low.

5.0
Best place to learn and experiment with new ideas
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
October 23, 2013
Pros: I joined LinkedIn as an NCG and absolutely loved my past 1.5 years there. I was given more responsibilities and allowed to make mistakes. I also got the opportunity to learn a lot of new things.
Cons: It's a developing company. The codebase is immature, and the standards are fairly low.

Fun Perks, Smart People, Fast Growth

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

October 17, 2014

Pros: The perks are awesome. Here, we have persons who know how to have fun. Work-life balance depends on your ambition. With overwhelming opportunities to learn new technologies, know smart and experienced people, investigate product and system designs, and evaluate and build your own ideas, I sometimes got lost in what to do in our free time, such as inDay. We are encouraged to ask the company for whatever we expect and be brave to transform ourselves. LinkedIn is an immense platform for all employees. As long as you are actively engaged, your gains will be incredible.

Cons: A little bit worried about the company expansion, which might have some negative effect on the culture. But I have the confidence that we will keep it right! We are still in a startup mode. To implement something, it might take a long time to investigate the huge codebase for what you want without good documentation and proper guidance, which slows down the speed to some extent.

5.0
Fun Perks, Smart People, Fast Growth
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
October 17, 2014
Pros: The perks are awesome. Here, we have persons who know how to have fun. Work-life balance depends on your ambition. With overwhelming opportunities to learn new technologies, know smart and experienced people, investigate product and system designs, and evaluate and build your own ideas, I sometimes got lost in what to do in our free time, such as inDay. We are encouraged to ask the company for whatever we expect and be brave to transform ourselves. LinkedIn is an immense platform for all employees. As long as you are actively engaged, your gains will be incredible.
Cons: A little bit worried about the company expansion, which might have some negative effect on the culture. But I have the confidence that we will keep it right! We are still in a startup mode. To implement something, it might take a long time to investigate the huge codebase for what you want without good documentation and proper guidance, which slows down the speed to some extent.

Joining as New Grad

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Mountain View, California, United States

Pros: - Seem to have lots of high-impact projects ongoing. - Relatively decent work-life balance. - Supportive team environment. - Competitive pay for new grad level.

Cons: - Career growth seems to vary a lot by team. - A lot of tech debt for newer projects.

5.0
Joining as New Grad
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Mountain View, California, United States
July 22, 2025
Pros: - Seem to have lots of high-impact projects ongoing. - Relatively decent work-life balance. - Supportive team environment. - Competitive pay for new grad level.
Cons: - Career growth seems to vary a lot by team. - A lot of tech debt for newer projects.

LinkedIn Interview Questions

Binary Tree Upside Down

Transform a binary tree so that the original left-most leaf becomes the new root. The original root becomes a left child, and the original right child becomes the right child of the original root's parent.

Insert Delete GetRandom O(1)

Design a data structure that supports insertion, deletion, and random element retrieval, all in constant time on average. You'll need to handle edge cases carefully to achieve O(1) complexity.

ArraysArraysDynamic Programming

Nested List Weight Sum II

You're given a nested list of integers where each integer has a depth. Calculate the weighted sum of all integers, where the weight is the depth of the integer from the bottom of the nested structure.

ArraysRecursion

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