Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience
Process
It was a mess overall. The recruiter was great and easy to work with.
Don't bother with them; it's a hazing process with people that don't care about you, don't know how to hire, and don't put the effort in to even represent themselves well.
If they can't even fake it for a 30-minute talk, imagine how horrible the team would be to work with.
I think six interviews over a month and a half.
Only one interview was conducted well, where the people were prepared and were professional: a technical panel with senior leadership where it was a discussion with some specific questions sprinkled in.
However, they decided to change the position they were interviewing me for, to infrastructure architect from what I was recruited for, and I don't do infrastructure or DevOps, so most answers were, "I don't know, I'd ask a DevOps partner for help."
Despite that, I did good enough to get passed around to other roles and did a few after this one.
The final interview was a hot mess.
First, they tried to get me to do a take-home test, but code it live while being watched, with the same evaluation criteria for the take-home (so no leniency for nerves or time limits, etc.).
I pointed out how that sets people up to fail, and we rescheduled, and the new format was to be another panel.
Points for listening and being flexible, and it gave me some hope they were trying, but alas, that was a bug and not a feature.
On this last panel, not one person cared enough to represent themselves or Rocket well.
I'd fire people if they interviewed for my company like that.
It was clear none wanted to be there, or cared about filling the position, nor that any of them knew how to conduct a professional interview.
They were not prepared with relevant technical or behavioral questions and instead asked mostly random, very narrow edge-case questions not related to the job (like, what's a data table in C#, for an Angular job?), which take specific and unrelated experience to answer.
Questions
Nothing related to the actual job. Random things in an unorganized fashion. Like, what kind of DB indexes are there? (A DBA question for a FE role. WTF?!!?!?!)
Was this helpful?
Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 13 interview experiences for the Rocket Mortgage Senior Software Engineer role in United States.
Success Rate
Rocket Mortgage's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in the United States is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having good feelings for Rocket Mortgage's Senior Software Engineer interview process in United States.
Rocket Mortgage Work Experiences
- 5.0Amazing organization and cultureSenior Software Engineer • Former EmployeeDetroit, MIFebruary 19, 2026Pros: Everything from culture to technology to people care.Cons: Some streams are more unrealistic about project timelines than others.
- 5.0Great people, great missionSenior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeNovember 26, 2025Pros: So far my experience at Rocket has been a very positive one. The people I have worked with have been great, there are a variety of interesting business domains to work in, and there is opportunity to learn about and work with AI which is a critical area to be gaining experience in to stay current as an engineer. The salary and benefits are fairly competitive, the work hours are reasonable (40-50/wk), and there is definitely opportunity for career growth if you have the skills, experience, work ethic, and ambition.Cons: The technology organization is reorganized on a fairly regular basis, which isn’t inherently negative, but it does mean you have to be comfortable with change—new leaders, new teammates, a new business domain, and more. Personally, I like the occasional change of scenery. It’s an enterprise software engineering role, so there’s going to be more processes and red tape than you might find at a smaller company or startup, but much less than I’ve seen at other enterprise companies.
- 3.0Great benefits, toxic leadership in engineeringSenior Software Engineer • Former EmployeeDetroit, MIJanuary 22, 2024Pros: Benefits were great, and pay was competitive.Cons: The ISMs are pretty decent as far as guidelines go, but the culture Dan Gilbert created is pretty toxic and problematic for a changing workforce. People would have a problem when I would say “user” when talking about someone using our product, but then had no problems saying things like “gump it” for “dumb it down”, or my favorite—their central tech support is “the guy”. Many of these because they are holding on to Dan's culture. I really wanted to like working here, I enjoyed my team, but my management chain was all white cis het men, who were just more problematic than the last. Heard many horror stories throughout engineering.
