I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Netflix (Los Gatos, CA) in Oct 2015
Interview
Never ever interview at Netflix. It is total waste of time.
The interview experiences written here are 100% correct. I interviewed with them few of weeks ago. When I was going through interview experience here on glassdoor I thought it might not be true. But after actually going through interview process, it confirms that all negative things expressed here are actually true.
I was approached my a manager for a position in his team. After telephonic conversation with him I was called for 4 technical and 1 hr interview. I did really well in all the rounds as I was able to solve all the problems they gave( design, algorithms). After few days I get feedback that I am not right fit for them. In first round the interviewer said it is an open ended design question( which means there is not right solution) - but it seemed he expected me to tell the answer he expected. This was not a open ended question !! And I decided to use other language and not Java, the interviewer was not comfortable in that language( he never used that language). In one of the rounds, I did everything perfectly, seeing this interviewer seemed to get frustrated that I was able to solve all his questions. It showed me that people at Netflix want to prove you wrong always. They want you to accept that they are god and you know nothing. And that guy left without any words and no handshake- this was so rude and unprofessional ! Last round I did perfect, interviewer accepted that I did very well in that round. The feedback I got from recruiter was they were looking for someone with ~ 8yrs of experience.
Netflix is a company which needs language experts who can cram syntax, keywords, api, packages. It doesn't need people who can solve hard problems, they just need Java code monkeys.
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Other Senior Software Engineer Interview Reviews for Netflix
Seeing the URL shortening service design question caught me off guard at first, but it turned out to be a lucky moment. Just a few days prior, I had practiced a similar architecture problem on PracHub, so I felt somewhat prepared to tackle scalability and data consistency aspects. The process included a recruiter screen, followed by a technical interview focused on system design. Overall, the questions were manageable, but I didn't end up receiving an offer, which was disappointing. The experience taught me a lot, though.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a URL shortening service (similar to bit.ly). What components would you include in your architecture, and how would you handle scalability and data consistency?
The Netflix interview loop is intense and lives up to its reputation. The recruiters are great, but the technical bar is absolute top tier. After a technical phone screen, the virtual onsite consisted of two deep system design rounds, a practical coding round, and very heavy behavioral rounds focused purely on their Culture Memo. They do not care about how many LeetCode hards you have memorized. They care about how you reason through scale, failure, and ambiguity.
Recruiter screen high level discussion.
Tech phone screen live programming exercise.
Virtual onsite, 3 tech rounds two culture/behavioral.
For mine it was like an out-of-body experience, except when I turned to look it wasn't a body at all; it was a plane. Watched it take off, seemed like maybe the pilot hit the throttle a little hard trying to reach cruising altitude and then.. dunno, maybe he dropped his cigarette under the seat or there was a bee in the cockpit or something because next thing you know he's flailing around while I watch the plane tumbling, helplessly aghast as a wing shears off from the stresses he's inducing. No survivors.
But seriously, good interview process. Very helpful recruiter team that will spend time detailing the process and expectations. Exercises are very realistic applied engineering stuff, not brain teasers or obscure algorithms or stuff you haven't done since college. Interview process may be different across the org so YMMV. I interviewed with the Content and Business Products side of the house (i.e., tools for studio, production, not streaming to end users) and the coding, sys design, and data modeling rounds all reflected that.
My advice to you: study the OSS software they publish, know your stuff and *stay calm*.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a time when you had conflict with someone outside your group
