Interview Experiences

Real candidates, real loops: every round, what was asked, and how it ended.

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8 stories

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ConfluentSoftware Engineer
Sep 2026

HackerRank, Sudoku, Machine Coding and a DevProd Values Round

Online Assessment A 60-minute HackerRank test with 3 coding problems. Phone Interview (DSA Round) Verify Sudoku (check whether a Sudoku board is valid) Solve Sudoku Machine Coding Round Find word in a list of documents (find a specific word in a list of documents). Find Phrase in the same sequence they appear in list of documents (find a phrase in the list of documents, with the words in the give…

Onsite0
ConfluentSoftware EngineerSenior+
Aug 2026

Variadic Screen, Phrase Search and a Podcast Design Loop

I'm in Canada, interviewing for Senior I. Their old careers site has been shut down and you now have to apply through IBM, otherwise nobody pays any attention to you. It seems to be a transition period right now and the internal hiring pipeline is a bit of a mess. In two of my interviews, the interviewer didn't know they had to log into Teams, which threw things off. Screen: the classic isVariadi…

Onsite0
ConfluentSoftware Engineer
Reported Apr 2026

Confluent Software Engineer interview with a four-round virtual onsite

A recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, and the process started with a coding conversation with a senior engineer. That round went really well. I finished confidently, and the interviewer seemed genuinely impressed. What followed felt chaotic and stressful. I was moved into a virtual onsite almost immediately. It covered four rounds over two days, including coding, a hiring manager discussion,…

Technical Screen0
ConfluentSoftware Engineer
Reported Apr 2026

Confluent Software Engineer interview: LeetCode-focused technical rounds over several weeks

My interviews followed a fairly standard sequence of two or three steps. I started with an initial recruiter screen, moved into technical interviews, and later had a behavioral or manager-focused conversation. The period from my first interview to the final decision lasted a couple of weeks, while the rounds themselves were usually quick and back to back. The early stage was a coding-focused tech…

Technical Screen0
ConfluentSoftware EngineerSenior+
Feb 2026

Passed Both Codings, Failed Both System Designs

The technical screening round overall was pretty simple. They give you a function query signature and have you determine whether there's a registered function that matches it. Later on this expands to cases involving optional arguments and variable number of arguments. The onsite had four rounds total. The first coding round was to implement something like printing the last N lines of a file, alo…

RejectedOnsite0
ConfluentSoftware EngineerSenior+
Jan 2026

A Linux-Heavy Super Day With No Feedback

Role: Confluent - Senior Software Engineer - Cloud Traffic Screen: look up a word in a given file — each line of the document is one sentence. First find a word in the document, then as a follow-up find a phrase/sentence in it. Just talked through the approach at a high level; optimizing with a hashmap was enough. The feedback said I needed hints. VO (super day) — Specialty: intense grilling on L…

Onsite0
ConfluentSoftware Engineer
Reported Nov 2025

Confluent Software Engineer interview with system design and DSA rounds

My process had three segments. First, I completed a qualifying technical round. Then came the heavier middle section: three rounds combining system design with DSA, with the DSA portion mostly resembling LeetCode medium difficulty. The final segment was a behavioral round with a senior manager. The process felt difficult because the middle block required sustained technical thinking across severa…

Technical Screen0
ConfluentSoftware Engineer
Reported Nov 2025

Confluent Software Engineer interview with two technical rounds and harder follow-ups

My interview had a small set of core stages: recruiter coordination, two technical interviews, and a manager round. The problems were medium overall, with some harder follow-ups that required me to stay sharp after I thought I’d settled into the first question. I had a generally positive impression of the process. The recruiters were responsive and supportive, and it took only a few weeks from my…

RejectedTechnical Screen0

What are interview experiences?

An interview experience is a candidate's own account of a hiring loop — not a question bank entry. It tells you the shape of the process: how many rounds there were, what each round actually tested, how long the gaps between them ran, and what the recruiter said at the end. That context is the part a question list cannot give you.

How to read them

Weight recent write-ups more heavily — interview loops change, often within a year. Read several for the same company and role rather than one: a single account tells you what one interviewer asked, while five tell you what the bar is. Note the outcome badge too, since a rejection write-up usually explains the gap far more precisely than an offer one.

Share your own

Every published experience earns 50 XP, and each of the first 3 likes it receives in a day earns you 10 XP more. Likes must come from established accounts; like-for-like swaps and likes from your own second account are not paid. Write it while the details are fresh — the round order, the exact prompts, and how much time you were given are what the next reader needs.

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