Palo Alto Networks

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Santa Clara, California

September 1, 2018

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

Had two technical phone interviews, each lasting 45 minutes.
Onsite coding round tested C programming skills with algorithmic questions.
Completed six onsite rounds.

Questions

Spinlocks
Lockless programming
Synchronization primitives in multithreading
Design questions about firewalls
Current trending fields in fast packet processing

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 12 interview experiences for the Palo Alto Networks Software Engineer role in Santa Clara, California.

Success Rate

25%

Pass Rate

Palo Alto Networks's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Santa Clara, California is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive33%

Neutral25%

Negative42%

Candidates reported having mixed feelings for Palo Alto Networks's Software Engineer interview process in Santa Clara, California.

Palo Alto Networks Work Experiences

Good People, Difficult Work

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

November 10, 2021

Pros: Overall, I am very impressed with this company. They go above and beyond to provide their employees with resources. For example, we often have speakers come to talk about lifestyle, finances, and other topics that are beneficial for worker happiness. Work from home is entirely flexible; we can come into the office whenever we need. Additionally, with twice-yearly bonuses, employees get $250 a quarter to spend as they need to help with COVID issues.

Cons: The work is truly difficult, so you have to be ready to work hard.

Good People, Difficult Work

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

November 10, 2021

Pros: Overall, I am very impressed with this company. They go above and beyond to provide their employees with resources. For example, we often have speakers come to talk about lifestyle, finances, and other topics that are beneficial for worker happiness. Work from home is entirely flexible; we can come into the office whenever we need. Additionally, with twice-yearly bonuses, employees get $250 a quarter to spend as they need to help with COVID issues.

Cons: The work is truly difficult, so you have to be ready to work hard.

Insecure and paranoid management

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

Pros: Cutting-edge tech stack Good stock options Good new campus

Cons: Caustic and harsh work environment in the Aperture team due to micromanagement. No team bonding.

Insecure and paranoid management

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

Pros: Cutting-edge tech stack Good stock options Good new campus

Cons: Caustic and harsh work environment in the Aperture team due to micromanagement. No team bonding.

Amazing company to get into

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

October 28, 2015

Pros: It is a fast-growing company. The product, i.e., the PAN-BOX firewall, is high-tech. It is fun to understand the functionality of the firewall and the engineering behind it. It is a medium-sized company, so you get to work with quite a lot of teams.

Cons: I think, for starters, it is a little difficult as there are very few "Getting Started" materials. It is a little difficult to coordinate a meeting with higher officials of the same or different teams.

Amazing company to get into

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

October 28, 2015

Pros: It is a fast-growing company. The product, i.e., the PAN-BOX firewall, is high-tech. It is fun to understand the functionality of the firewall and the engineering behind it. It is a medium-sized company, so you get to work with quite a lot of teams.

Cons: I think, for starters, it is a little difficult as there are very few "Getting Started" materials. It is a little difficult to coordinate a meeting with higher officials of the same or different teams.

Good People, Difficult Work

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

November 10, 2021

Pros: Overall, I am very impressed with this company. They go above and beyond to provide their employees with resources. For example, we often have speakers come to talk about lifestyle, finances, and other topics that are beneficial for worker happiness. Work from home is entirely flexible; we can come into the office whenever we need. Additionally, with twice-yearly bonuses, employees get $250 a quarter to spend as they need to help with COVID issues.

Cons: The work is truly difficult, so you have to be ready to work hard.

5.0
Good People, Difficult Work
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Santa Clara, California, United States
November 10, 2021
Pros: Overall, I am very impressed with this company. They go above and beyond to provide their employees with resources. For example, we often have speakers come to talk about lifestyle, finances, and other topics that are beneficial for worker happiness. Work from home is entirely flexible; we can come into the office whenever we need. Additionally, with twice-yearly bonuses, employees get $250 a quarter to spend as they need to help with COVID issues.
Cons: The work is truly difficult, so you have to be ready to work hard.

Insecure and paranoid management

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

Pros: Cutting-edge tech stack Good stock options Good new campus

Cons: Caustic and harsh work environment in the Aperture team due to micromanagement. No team bonding.

1.0
Insecure and paranoid management
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Santa Clara, California, United States
April 15, 2018
Pros: Cutting-edge tech stack Good stock options Good new campus
Cons: Caustic and harsh work environment in the Aperture team due to micromanagement. No team bonding.

Amazing company to get into

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Santa Clara, California, United States

October 28, 2015

Pros: It is a fast-growing company. The product, i.e., the PAN-BOX firewall, is high-tech. It is fun to understand the functionality of the firewall and the engineering behind it. It is a medium-sized company, so you get to work with quite a lot of teams.

Cons: I think, for starters, it is a little difficult as there are very few "Getting Started" materials. It is a little difficult to coordinate a meeting with higher officials of the same or different teams.

4.0
Amazing company to get into
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Santa Clara, California, United States
October 28, 2015
Pros: It is a fast-growing company. The product, i.e., the PAN-BOX firewall, is high-tech. It is fun to understand the functionality of the firewall and the engineering behind it. It is a medium-sized company, so you get to work with quite a lot of teams.
Cons: I think, for starters, it is a little difficult as there are very few "Getting Started" materials. It is a little difficult to coordinate a meeting with higher officials of the same or different teams.

Palo Alto Networks Interview Questions

Longest Common Prefix

Find the longest string that is a prefix of all strings in a given array. If no common prefix exists, return an empty string.

LRU Cache

Design a data structure that acts as a Least Recently Used (LRU) cache. Implement methods to get and put key-value pairs, evicting the least recently used entry when the cache is full.

Find the Longest Equal Subarray

Given an array and a maximum allowed difference, find the longest subarray where the most frequent element appears at least the same number of times as all other elements combined. You can change elements by at most the allowed difference amount to achieve this.

ArraysTwo PointersSliding Windows

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