IBM Software Engineer Interview Experience — An 80-Minute HackerRank with a Slow Web IDE

IBM·Software Engineer·Aug 2026
Online Assessmentmedium

The assessment lasted 80 minutes in total.

At the beginning, it recommended choosing one of three frameworks: Django, Spring Boot, or Node.

The first problem was LeetCode's Design Authentication Manager.

The second problem provided a web application for a ticket-booking system. I had to fix errors in the backend. It involved basic concepts such as RESTful APIs, caching, and paginating returned data.

Overall, it was not difficult, but HackerRank's proctoring rules were extremely strict. Multiple monitors were forbidden, the assessment had to remain full-screen, and the web IDE for the second problem responded very slowly. Individual unit tests could not be run separately either, so test runs took too long and consumed a great deal of thinking time.

The ridiculous part was that the invitation email emphasized that candidates should try to answer in the programming languages requested by the job description so they would receive priority for later interviews. The job description listed only Go, C++, and Java, while just one of those languages matched the options available in HackerRank.

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Curated and edited by PracHub

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Interview at a glance

Company
IBM
Role
Software Engineer
Rounds
Online Assessment
Difficulty
medium
Interview date
Aug 2026
Questions from this interview
2 questions

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