I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Zendesk (San Francisco, CA) in Sep 2017
Interview
Quick phone chat with the internal recruiter to introduce me to their interview process and the company culture. Then another skype call with the Hiring Manger that was 50% discussion and 50% code challenge on coderpad.
After that I was flown out to SF for a full days interview with the team. I think there were 6 interviews all up with my potential peers. There was one pairing session to fix a bug in a ruby library, two interviews that were whiteboard excersizes the rest were discussions about the role and my experience.
I was not offered the role as they wanted someone with more people management experience and offered to introduce me to other teams that were looking for engineers. I was lucky enough to be offered something in another company so didn't pursue anything further with Zendesk.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Fix a bug in a ruby library, some algorithm questions and high level system architecture problem solving.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Zendesk (Dublin, Dublin) in Apr 2026
Interview
It was a four-round interview:
1. HR screen call
2. Hiring manager
3. Technical
4. One more behavioral interview
After just the HR recruiter's call, they assigned a meeting for the hiring manager. One day before, they cancelled it.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Zendesk (Tallinn) in Jan 2026
Interview
First interview was with HR rep, second one with a technical team lead. There was supposedly a third interview with another technical manager or something, but it seemed they had already a strong candidate in mind, so after second interview I immediately got an email that they had gone the other way.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Zendesk
Interview
The interview process was straight forward. The process moved quickly across the different stages of the hiring process. Questions were related to the job and it's requirements instead of being generic questions
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Walk through my resume to explain previous experiences
Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Zendesk with 2.6 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 57% positive. To compare, the company-average is 49.6% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 25 days to get hired, when considering 30 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Zendesk overall takes an average of 28 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Zendesk as a Software Engineer according to 30 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 28%
One on one interview: 23%
Skills test: 14%
Presentation: 10%
Background check: 9%
Group panel interview: 7%
Personality test: 4%
IQ intelligence test: 3%
Other: 1%
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