I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Salesforce (Tel Aviv-Yafo) in Dec 2024
Interview
I interviewed for a position at Salesforce in Tel Aviv in Dec 2024 and found the process frustrating and unclear. The interview stages were poorly communicated, and I received inconsistent feedback throughout.
The process began with a brief HR screening followed by a call with the hiring manager where the next steps were outlined. I was informed there would be two coding interviews, each lasting one hour, and passing one out of the two would suffice. After that, the system design interview and HR rounds would follow.
In the first coding round, I was tasked with a challenging JSON parsing problem (hard level), which likely would take several hours to implement a reliable solution. Unfortunately, the interviewer was unfamiliar with my programming language, which led to misleading feedback and comments during the task. Despite this, I was able to provide a solution for basic cases and implemented some further logic.
The second round started with a brief introduction, followed by an easy Leetcode problem and then an OOP task followed by additional questions regarding time complexity and optimization, all of above I handled very well.
However, the next day, I received feedback from HR stating that I had failed the coding rounds and that my experience level was considered below medium. This feedback didn’t align with my performance, as I objectively performed well, especially in the second round (handled test cases + edge cases, correct answers). I was also informed that even perfect performance in one out of two live coding rounds would not be sufficient.
Overall, the interview process lacked clarity and professionalism, with conflicting information about the interview stages and feedback that seemed inconsistent with my actual performance.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
write parsing function for JSON string - kind of json.loads() function
1) Take-home code screen consisting of two easy/medium hackerrank questions. Self-paced but you only get an hour to do both
2) Follow-up interview with a director to get basic feel for the role's expectations
3) The final round consisted of 4 interviews which went deeper into coding skills, system design, security, and networking
I had a coding project I'd worked on independently in my off-time, and I got to demo it for some of my interviewers, and I think it really helped make the impression that I stood out above the competition.
That said, my interview was for a Lead Software Engineer position, and the offer ended up being for a Senior position, one level lower than Lead. The reasoning was because although my computer science fundamentals were solid, I needed to get some hands-on experience with security at scale.
It was about two weeks from when I applied to when all my interviews were finished, and then another three weeks to hear back, due in part to holidays and out-of-offices.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
My interviewer brought up a project I mentioned on my resume and asked me to describe how it was architected from a system design standpoint. Then he asked me why certain components were chosen instead of others, and how I would implement security around an existing design that was improperly secured.
Had total 6 rounds of interview which includes one programming test. 3 rounds were about ds& algo questions which are medium level. 2 were system design rounds and in one of the round they check for culture fit which is really important