At Erie Insurance Group, a Software Engineer plays a crucial role in building, maintaining, and modernizing the technology systems that protect millions of policyholders. The software you write and support directly impacts the company’s ability to issue policies, process claims, and maintain its legendary reputation for customer service. Because Erie Insurance Group is a major player in the insurance industry, the engineering team operates at a massive scale, handling complex transactions and massive datasets with a strong emphasis on reliability, security, and performance. You will typically work within a collaborative, product-focused team, often focusing on core enterprise systems like Guidewire or developing robust backend services using Java and modern cloud technologies. Engineers here do not work in isolation. You will partner closely with business analysts, product owners, and quality assurance teams to translate complex insurance rules into elegant, scalable code. It is an environment where long-term code quality and system stability are highly valued, offering a balance of technical challenge and steady, sustainable professional growth. What makes this role distinct is the unique culture of Erie Insurance Group. The company operates with a deeply collaborative, service-first mindset.
Initial Screening
reportedAsynchronous, recorded video interview answering behavioral questions and discussing your background.
What to demonstrate
- Asynchronous, recorded video interview answering behavioral questions and discussing your background
- Depth in Teamwork / Collaboration
How to prepare
- Be able to walk your CV end to end in two minutes, and say why this company specifically.
- Have your salary expectations, notice period and location constraints ready, and ask for the rest of the loop in writing.
HR Conversation
reportedDiscussion with a human resources representative about career goals, motivations, and qualifications.
What to demonstrate
- Discussion with a human resources representative about career goals, motivations, and qualifications
- Depth in Teamwork / Collaboration
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Describe a time when you had to adapt to a major change in project requirements or technology.
- Answer aloud and timed: Talk about a project you completed during your school or past work experience that you are particularly proud of.
Technical and Team Interviews
reportedVideo call or on-site panel interview with team members asking technical, situational, and behavioral questions.
What to demonstrate
- Video call or on-site panel interview with team members asking technical, situational, and behavioral questions
- Depth in Teamwork / Collaboration
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: How do you handle constructive criticism or feedback on your code from peers?
- Answer aloud and timed: Describe a time when you worked on a development team. How did the team divide responsibilities, and what was your specific contribution?
Collaborative Coding Session
reportedWork alongside developers to solve a problem, evaluating communication, coding practices, and teamwork.
What to demonstrate
- Work alongside developers to solve a problem, evaluating communication, coding practices, and teamwork
- Depth in Teamwork / Collaboration
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: How do you handle disagreements or conflicting opinions within a software development team?
- Answer aloud and timed: Give an example of a time you had to explain a complex technical concept to a non-technical stakeholder or teammate.
PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.
Emphasize Teamwork Over Solo Heroics
When answering behavioral questions, focus on "we" rather than just "I." Highlight how you supported your team, shared knowledge, and contributed to a positive group dynamic.
Research the Business
Showing that you understand how an insurance company operates and how technology drives policy management and claims processing will immediately set you apart from candidates who only focus on code.
Be Prepared for Asynchronous Formats
If your initial screen is a recorded video session, practice speaking clearly to a camera, keeping your answers structured (using the STAR method), and managing your time effectively.
Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.
Track a rolling failure rate per destination for circuit decisions
The egress service delivers about 1,500 webhooks per second across roughly 40,000 destinations, each call bounded by a 10 second timeout. Maintain, per destination, the failure rate over the trailing 60 seconds so a caller can ask before dispatch whether the circuit should open. Attempts arrive as (destination_id, finished_at_ms, outcome). Requirement: amortised O(1) per attempt, with total memory bounded by the destination count rather than by traffic. Give the structure, its exact memory, and the rule that stops a destination with three attempts from opening a circuit.
Approach
- Name the exact-deque version and then reject it as the default. Holding timestamps and advancing a tail pointer past anything older than now minus 60 seconds is a correct two-pointer window at amortised O(1) per attempt, but its memory tracks in-window traffic, so one destination in a retry storm holds hundreds of thousands of entries while thousands of quiet destinations hold none.
- Use a ring of 60 one-second buckets per destination, each bucket a pair of counters for attempts and failures. On an attempt, advance the ring by the elapsed whole seconds, zeroing at most min(elapsed, 60) buckets, then increment the head. That is amortised O(1) with a fixed footprint per destination.
- State the footprint: 60 buckets times two 4-byte counters is 480 bytes of payload per destination, so 40,000 destinations is roughly 20 to 25 MB with per-entry overhead, bounded by the catalogue rather than by the rate. The cost is granularity, since the oldest bucket ages out in whole seconds, which is far tighter than the decision needs.
- Require a minimum sample before the circuit may open. A destination with three attempts and three failures reads as 100 percent and is not evidence; a floor of roughly 20 attempts in the window makes the ratio meaningful, and below that floor use a run of consecutive failures as the trigger instead.
Follow-up
- The fleet is 30 instances and each sees roughly a thirtieth of a destination's traffic. Where does the rate actually live, and what does a per-instance answer get wrong?
- A destination answers in 9.5 seconds and succeeds. It is not failing but it is consuming your per-destination concurrency. What signal should open the circuit here?
Archive a resource graph without breaking live references or recursing
Resources reference other resources within a tenant; for the largest tenant the reference table holds up to 2,000,000 nodes and 8,000,000 edges. Archiving a resource must archive everything reachable from it that nothing outside the set still references, refuse when a live external referrer exists, and terminate when references form cycles, which they legitimately do. Produce the archive order and the refusal list, targeting O(V+E). Say what stops the traversal crossing a tenant boundary, and why recursion is the wrong control structure at this size.
Approach
- Load the subgraph with the tenant predicate on both endpoints of the edge, not only on the side you started from. Scoping the left table alone is the classic cross-tenant leak: one mis-entered edge then pulls another tenant's resources into the traversal and, worse, into the archive.
- Traverse iteratively with an explicit stack. A 2,000,000-node graph can hold a chain deep enough to exhaust a native stack in the low tens of thousands of frames, and that failure is a process crash rather than an error you can return.
- Treat cycles as data rather than corruption: compute strongly connected components with Tarjan in O(V+E) using its own explicit stack, then condense. The condensation is a DAG, so a topological order over it gives the archive order, and every member of a component archives in one transaction because no order within a cycle is valid.
- Decide refusals with reverse edges. A candidate is archivable only if every in-edge originates inside the candidate set, so build the transpose or count in-degrees restricted to the visited set, and emit each blocked resource with the id of the external referrer, which is the only part of the answer an operator can act on.
Follow-up
- The graph is read in one query and the archive writes a minute later. What can change in between, and how do you make the write safe?
- The candidate set is 400,000 resources. Is that one transaction, and if not, what does a half-finished archive look like to a reader?
Collapse a redelivered event batch into per-aggregate high-water marks
You drain a batch of up to 5,000,000 events, each (aggregate_id BIGINT, aggregate_version INT, event_type, payload). The log guarantees order within one aggregate only; the batch merges 64 partitions, and a relay failover has redelivered a range, so an older version for an aggregate can appear after a newer one. Given a map of last_applied_version per aggregate, produce the events worth applying, at most one per (aggregate_id, version), plus the count discarded. Target O(n) time. State the memory for 2,000,000 distinct aggregates and what you do when it does not fit.
Approach
- One pass, one hash map from aggregate_id to the highest version kept, and a discard counter. An event whose version is at or below last_applied_version for its aggregate is dropped without further work, which is the whole reason the event carries its version rather than a delta. O(n) expected time, O(d) space in distinct aggregates.
- Keep the maximum, never the last occurrence. The redelivered range means the final appearance of an aggregate in the batch can be an older version than one seen earlier in the same batch, so last-wins applies stale state over newer state and the projection regresses with no error anywhere.
- Cost the memory instead of calling it large: an 8-byte key plus a 4-byte version is 12 bytes of payload, and an open-addressed table held at a 0.7 load factor costs roughly 17 bytes per entry before per-slot metadata, so 2,000,000 aggregates is tens of megabytes in a native layout and several times that in a runtime that boxes both key and value.
- If the distinct set exceeds memory, partition on hash(aggregate_id) mod P and reduce each partition independently. Every event for one aggregate hashes to the same partition, so the per-partition result is exact and the merge is concatenation rather than a second reduction.
Follow-up
- The payload is a patch rather than a snapshot, so applying only the highest version loses the intermediate changes. What changes in your reduction?
- How do you detect that version 7 arrived while version 6 was never delivered, and what should the consumer do about the gap?
Keep soft-deleted accounts from blocking re-registration
app_user holds user_id, tenant_id, email CITEXT, password_hash (NULL for SSO principals), email_verified_at, auth_version, status ('invited','active','suspended','deactivated'), created_at, updated_at, deleted_at. Two live accounts for one address inside a tenant must be impossible, but an address freed by a soft delete must be reusable, and the same tenant may delete and re-register it repeatedly. Write the uniqueness DDL for PostgreSQL 16, then the equivalent for MySQL 8 where partial indexes do not exist, and say what each permits once three deleted rows already hold that address.
Approach
- Start from what is actually unique: not (tenant_id, email), but (tenant_id, email) among live rows. PostgreSQL says that directly — CREATE UNIQUE INDEX app_user_live_email ON app_user (tenant_id, email) WHERE deleted_at IS NULL. A full constraint over the same two columns burns the address permanently the first time someone deletes an account.
- Keep case-insensitivity in the type or the index, never in the application: CITEXT as given, or UNIQUE (tenant_id, lower(email)) as an expression index where the extension is unavailable. A case-sensitive unique column is exactly how two accounts for one human appear.
- For MySQL 8 the predicate has to move inside the key: add a discriminator column that is a constant 0 while the row is live and is set to user_id on delete, with UNIQUE (tenant_id, email, deleted_marker). Live rows share the constant and still collide; deleted rows differ from each other and stop colliding.
- State the NULL variant and its dependency: leaving the marker NULL for deleted rows also works, because a unique index treats NULLs as distinct — true in MySQL, and true in PostgreSQL only under the default NULLS DISTINCT, which PostgreSQL 15 lets you reverse. Check the polarity against the three existing deleted rows: constant-on-live is what preserves the collision you want, and reversing it silently admits duplicate live accounts.
Follow-up
- A deleted account re-registers with the same address the next day. Do the old resource rows follow the new user_id, and how does the API keep the two principals apart?
- How do you honour an erasure request while resource_revision.actor_user_id still references this table?
Stop tag and share joins from fanning out a page
resource_tag is (resource_id, tag_id) with PK (resource_id, tag_id); resource_share is (resource_id, shared_with_user_id, permission). The tagged-and-shared listing inner-joins resource to both, filters tenant_id, tag_id = ANY($2) and shared_with_user_id = $3, orders by updated_at DESC and takes 50. Pages come back with fewer than 50 distinct resources and the total in the header is far too high. Explain the row multiplication, rewrite both the page query and the count query so each is correct, and name the index each one needs. PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Do the arithmetic against the predicates that are actually there. An inner join emits one row per matching child row, and both joins are filtered: tag_id = ANY($2) admits only the requested tags, shared_with_user_id = $3 admits one user's share rows. So a resource holding three of the requested tags and shared with $3 once yields three rows, not one — the multiplier is its count of matching tags times its share rows for that single user, and that second factor is 1 unless the table admits duplicate (resource_id, shared_with_user_id) pairs. LIMIT 50 then limits rows rather than resources, and COUNT(*) counts pairs — the header is the product, not the population.
- Reject DISTINCT as the fix. It deduplicates after the product has been built, so the planner must materialise and sort the fanned-out set before the LIMIT can apply, and it leaves any SUM or AVG in the same select list wrong.
- Rewrite both filters as semi-joins, keeping resource as the only row source: AND EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM resource_tag rt WHERE rt.resource_id = r.resource_id AND rt.tag_id = ANY($2)) and the same shape against resource_share. A semi-join stops at the first match per resource and preserves the driving index order, so ORDER BY updated_at DESC, resource_id DESC LIMIT 50 still stops after 50 rows.
- Count with the same predicates and no join at all: SELECT count(*) FROM resource r WHERE r.tenant_id = $1 AND r.status = 'active' AND EXISTS (...) AND EXISTS (...). Nothing multiplies a resource, so the number is the population.
Follow-up
- The filter changes from 'any of these tags' to 'all of these tags'. Rewrite it and state what it costs relative to the ANY form.
- A resource can be shared with the same user twice under different permissions. Does your count change, and should it?
Describe a situation where a team project was falling behind schedule. What actions did you take to help the t
Describe a situation where a team project was falling behind schedule. What actions did you take to help the team succeed?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
What programming languages, IDEs, and development tools do you have the most experience with?
What programming languages, IDEs, and development tools do you have the most experience with?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
Explain the core principles of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and how you apply them in Java.
Explain the core principles of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and how you apply them in Java.
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
What experience do you have with different operating systems (e.g., Windows, Linux) in a development or deploy
What experience do you have with different operating systems (e.g., Windows, Linux) in a development or deployment context?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How do you approach debugging a complex, legacy codebase when you encounter an undocumented bug?
How do you approach debugging a complex, legacy codebase when you encounter an undocumented bug?
Approach
- Establish what changed and when, before forming any theory.
- Pick a bisection that eliminates candidates whichever way it turns out.
- Check the instrumentation before believing the symptom.
- Separate the trigger from the cause; the deploy is rarely the bug.
Follow-up
- What would you look at first, and what would it rule out?
- How would you tell a cause from a coincidence here?
Built from the rounds and topics Erie Insurance Group candidates report.
Prepare, practise & reflect
One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.
0 / 7 done01Map the Erie Insurance Group loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Initial Screening, HR Conversation, Technical and Team Interviews, Collaborative Coding Session.
- For each round, write one sentence on what it is judging, from the description above, and mark the one you are least ready for.
Deliverable: A one-page map of the 4 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.
02Work Teamwork / Collaboration
- Spend the session on Teamwork / Collaboration, which Erie Insurance Group candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Teamwork / Collaboration and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Teamwork / Collaboration.
03Work Code Writing (Practical Coding Exercises)
- Spend the session on Code Writing (Practical Coding Exercises), which Erie Insurance Group candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Code Writing (Practical Coding Exercises) and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Code Writing (Practical Coding Exercises).
04Work Java
- Spend the session on Java, which Erie Insurance Group candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Java and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Java.
05Answer out loud: Behavioral & Motivation
- Answer aloud, timed: Why do you want to work for Erie Insurance Group, and what do you know about our business model?
- Answer aloud, timed: Where do you see yourself professionally in five years, and how does this role help you get there?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Behavioral & Motivation question(s), under time.
06Answer out loud: Teamwork & Collaboration
- Answer aloud, timed: Describe a time when you worked on a development team. How did the team divide responsibilities, and what was your specific contribution?
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you handle disagreements or conflicting opinions within a software development team?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Teamwork & Collaboration question(s), under time.
07Answer out loud: Technical & Tooling
- Answer aloud, timed: What programming languages, IDEs, and development tools do you have the most experience with?
- Answer aloud, timed: Explain the core principles of Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) and how you apply them in Java.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Technical & Tooling question(s), under time.
Expand any day for tasks and deliverables. Your progress is saved on this device.
Behavioural rounds judge the decision you made and what it cost.
Why do you want to work for Erie Insurance Group, and what do you know about our business model?
Why do you want to work for Erie Insurance Group, and what do you know about our business model?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Where do you see yourself professionally in five years, and how does this role help you get there?
Where do you see yourself professionally in five years, and how does this role help you get there?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Describe a time when you had to adapt to a major change in project requirements or technology.
Describe a time when you had to adapt to a major change in project requirements or technology.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Talk about a project you completed during your school or past work experience that you are particularly proud
Talk about a project you completed during your school or past work experience that you are particularly proud of.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you handle constructive criticism or feedback on your code from peers?
How do you handle constructive criticism or feedback on your code from peers?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Describe a time when you worked on a development team. How did the team divide responsibilities, and what was
Describe a time when you worked on a development team. How did the team divide responsibilities, and what was your specific contribution?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you handle disagreements or conflicting opinions within a software development team?
How do you handle disagreements or conflicting opinions within a software development team?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Give an example of a time you had to explain a complex technical concept to a non-technical stakeholder or tea
Give an example of a time you had to explain a complex technical concept to a non-technical stakeholder or teammate.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
What is your approach to code reviews, both when receiving feedback and when reviewing a teammate's pull reque
What is your approach to code reviews, both when receiving feedback and when reviewing a teammate's pull request?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Describe your experience with database systems and writing SQL queries.
Describe your experience with database systems and writing SQL queries.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
- 01
Why do you want to work for Erie Insurance Group, and what do you know about our business model?
- 02
Where do you see yourself professionally in five years, and how does this role help you get there?
- 03
Describe a time when you had to adapt to a major change in project requirements or technology.
- 04
Talk about a project you completed during your school or past work experience that you are particularly proud of.
How technical is the interview process compared to big tech companies?
The technical bar is solid, but the focus is different. Rather than testing you on highly complex, theoretical competitive programming algorithms, Erie Insurance Group focuses on practical software engineering, clean coding practices, system design, and collaborative problem-solving.
Erie Insurance Group Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the company culture like for engineers?
The culture is highly supportive, stable, and collaborative. It is less about intense, high-stress delivery cycles and more about sustainable engineering, high-quality work, and mutual respect among team members.
Erie Insurance Group Software Engineer candidate reports ↗How long does the hiring process typically take?
The timeline can vary. While some candidates experience a smooth, multi-week progression, others have noted that recruiter communication can occasionally take longer. It is best to remain proactive and follow up if you do not hear back within a week of an interview step. Be prepared for potential delays in recruiter communication during the process. Keep track of your touchpoints and don't hesitate to send polite follow-up emails if you experience silence after completing an interview stage.
Erie Insurance Group Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Are there remote or hybrid work options for Software Engineers?
Yes, Erie Insurance Group offers hybrid work models depending on the team and location, though many engineering roles are centered around their main campus in Erie, PA. You should clarify the specific hybrid or onsite expectations for your target team early in the recruitment process.
Erie Insurance Group Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What topics does Erie Insurance Group test in interviews?
Erie Insurance Group interviews most often cover Behavioral Interviewing, Stakeholder Communication, Adaptability to Interview Formats, Communication, and Data Analysis. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.
Erie Insurance Group Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗
No official company page is cited. Rounds and questions come from candidate reports and PracHub editorial material; each source shows the date it was read.
- 01Erie Insurance Group Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Company-reported rounds, questions and FAQ.
Candidate reports · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 02PracHub Software Engineer practice ↗
PracHub practice material, not company-reported.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 03PracHub preparation framework ↗
PracHub preparation guidance.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22
Explore related engineering environments and compare the preparation focus.
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