A long-winded HR screening (1-1.5h), then a technical round (2-2.5h), and supposedly after that, a Manager Interview.

The questions revolved mostly around very basic Java Core and Spring Core stuff and some old design patterns, literally a sloppy selection of the classic "top 100 Java Interview Questions". Despite this being a Principal/Architect role, I received almost no questions around software architecture and absolutely no system design questions. It felt like a simple Senior dev interview from 2010, with sloppy interviewers who had no idea what they were looking for and spent zero time coming up with meaningful questions. A well-prepared medior or senior dev could have passed the interview easily.

Behavioral questions revolved mostly around fighting and convincing your own managers. Some of these were poorly explained, and I felt that they were looking for a particular response, not typical negotiation/conflict resolution.

Final, finally.

Bean Scopes in Spring.

Old Java Design Patterns:

• Proxy
• Adapter
• Facade

How would you implement a singleton?

Gotcha Snippets:

• == / equals / instanceof and other quirky, autoboxing and unboxing gotcha questions.

What would you say if your manager turns your proposal down, says simply, "this is not how we used to do things," and then refuses to elaborate?