I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Spotify (Boston, MA) in Feb 2019
Interview
Its very straightforward. Got a call, being in boston, had 1 google hangout interview. After that, had 5 onsite interviews back to back. Following were the rounds:
1. programming -> general programming questions like arraylist vs linked list etc. Pretty trivial
2. programming(harder) -> largest island, dynamic programming a bit.
Then had a great lunch with some of the employees! Had quiet a good time honestly!
3. Cultural Fit -> normal cultural fit questions, nothing specific.
4. System design -> design a like button. I started with unnecessary complexities without analyzing the problem. It was a way more simplistic solution based problem which i thought from scalability perspective etc. This is where i flunked i guess.
5. Case study -> system outage diagram. Was told to investigate.
I was able to flair through all the rounds easily. Only the system design round was unexpectedly bad.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Spotify in Aug 2022
Interview
Overall I would say it was short, I think it was friendly, but the process was built as monologue, that was a bit unexpected to me. Unfortunately, I haven't received any feedback or emotions from interviewers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- asked about a recent project, some superficial questions related to it
- asked how would I find bottlenecks in apps
- asked what happens when a user presses Enter in a browser after entering url
- as the additional question was how does browser render the server response
- implemented a very basic algorithm task in the online editor, but didn't ask about Big O or anything like that, just that it works and it is ok.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Spotify in Mar 2022
Interview
I had an Intro call with an HR representative to discuss the opportunity.
I Had a live Coding session, a one-hour call, with two Senior Software Engineers to solve an algorithm question.
I applied through other source. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Spotify (Boston, MA) in Aug 2019
Interview
Approached by internal recruiter
Took a week to schedule to talk to internal recruiter. Was asked high level distributed computing questions.
Scheduled for next interview conducted via Google Hangout. Directed to code share site for coding test, There were no rules set on whether interviewee could look up API doc or syntax . help. I made a number of mistakes with array syntax. My program did produce correct results for all edge cases. However, from an observer's point of view, I definitely struggled because of array syntax error. Although I answered rest of questions correctly, it was not a smooth interview. Hence, I was not moved forward to next step.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a project you have accomplished.
Remove duplicates from array of integer maintaining original order.
Explain the data structure chosen.
What's the complexity of the program.?
Senior Backend Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Spotify with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 60% positive. To compare, the company-average is 47.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Senior Backend Engineer roles take an average of 16 days to get hired, when considering 5 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Spotify overall takes an average of 39 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Spotify as a Senior Backend Engineer according to 5 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 30%
Skills test: 20%
Group panel interview: 10%
Drug test: 10%
Personality test: 10%
Presentation: 10%
One on one interview: 10%
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