Staff Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Zscaler with 2.9 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 29% positive. To compare, the company-average is 53.4% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Staff Software Engineer roles take an average of 22 days to get hired, when considering 7 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Zscaler overall takes an average of 32 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Zscaler as a Staff Software Engineer according to 7 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 35%
One on one interview: 29%
Skills test: 12%
Personality test: 6%
Presentation: 6%
Group panel interview: 6%
Background check: 6%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Zscaler (New York, NY)
Interview
They asked me to come for the first round onsite. I gave them my schedule and they scheduled me for the first round with the hiring manager and another software engineer. 10 minutes before the interview I get an email saying that hiring manager is not in office and he will be conducting interview on zoom in one of their meeting room. Then I was sitting in a dark room where the manager could not even see me. The hiring manager kept asking all random questions which are not relevant for the role. Then for the next round, the engineer turned up 15 minutes late. After that he asked me couple of coding questions and few other technical stuff and I was able to solve them and answer most of the questions. Couple of days later I got rejection email. I felt the hiring manager was not at all interested in hiring. Don't waste your time with a company that doesn't value candidates time. Why would you call someone onsite if people who interview me would not even be onsite.
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Zscaler (San Jose, CA)
Interview
The process was relatively simple. More role based and situation based questions. However I felt they could do a better job at conducting the interview. The upper management looked totally disinterested during the interview. Wish they could be more cordial during interviews.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Zscaler in Dec 2025
Interview
Interviewer showed up late to interview, didn’t bother to introduce self beyond name. At end of interview when opportunity for questions came up, I noted that they didn’t say anything about how long he’s been there, what he does, etc.
During the coding question, they took a personal call and went off camera for 5 minutes. Then again later as well. During one of these absences I had clarification questions, which had to wait, and when they returned I asked the question verbally, twice, which they didn’t respond to. Only after asking “can you hear me?” did they finally respond.
It was clear throughout that the interviewers attention was everywhere but on the interview at hand. It was the most unprofessional interview I’ve ever experienced in 30 years of working.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
If an analog clock displaying 3:15, what is the angle difference between the hour & minute hands.
Given an integer x, return true if x is a palindrome, and false otherwise. With an added constraint of "Could you solve it without converting the integer to a string?"
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Zscaler
Interview
The interview was scheduled and well managed by the recruiters,
But the hiring team was very bad, they repeatedly rescheduled the call saying they were busy with their work and I obliged to continue with the interview. The first 3 are the technical rounds and then final hiring manager round.
After the final round, I was rejected saying I am not aligned to what they are looking for. they had ample opportunity to reject me beforehand , wasted my time after giving lot of hopes.