Principal Engineer Interview Questions

4,347 principal engineer interview questions shared by candidates

The managers focused on culture fit and general experience, they want to know what is your approach in regards to difficult personal relationships, which are part of life. The architect focused on design and high level patterns, with focus on the area of expertise like front-end, JavaScript and security. The engineers focused on low level technical questions, again about JavaScript, recent experience, frameworks used, etc. But I have to say that the best part was their approach to the programming test. Most companies do a live online coding session with someone watching you type, but I find this puts unreal pressure. Salesforce instead gives you an assignment and you have 3 hours to work on it, in your own time, with your own tools. MUCH BETTER approach! This is how we work in reality: you can relax, focus, have coffee, use your tools. Great experience!
avatar

Principal Software Engineer

Interviewed at Salesforce

4
Nov 2, 2018

The managers focused on culture fit and general experience, they want to know what is your approach in regards to difficult personal relationships, which are part of life. The architect focused on design and high level patterns, with focus on the area of expertise like front-end, JavaScript and security. The engineers focused on low level technical questions, again about JavaScript, recent experience, frameworks used, etc. But I have to say that the best part was their approach to the programming test. Most companies do a live online coding session with someone watching you type, but I find this puts unreal pressure. Salesforce instead gives you an assignment and you have 3 hours to work on it, in your own time, with your own tools. MUCH BETTER approach! This is how we work in reality: you can relax, focus, have coffee, use your tools. Great experience!

These spanned basic OO Concepts, couple of Algorithm/Data structure coding exercises with intermediate level difficulty. There were some system design/architecture questions around the past experiences which were interesting and probably more relevant to the job. The interviewers shared further insights on the position as well.
avatar

Principal Software Engineer

Interviewed at Salesforce

4
Jan 2, 2019

These spanned basic OO Concepts, couple of Algorithm/Data structure coding exercises with intermediate level difficulty. There were some system design/architecture questions around the past experiences which were interesting and probably more relevant to the job. The interviewers shared further insights on the position as well.

I was interviewing for a Service Cloud role, so they asked what I would say if a customer asked 'I've just made a large investment in Cisco infrastructure in my call centre. If I choose your solution does that mean I just wasted my money?'
avatar

Principal Sales Engineer

Interviewed at Salesforce

4
Oct 27, 2017

I was interviewing for a Service Cloud role, so they asked what I would say if a customer asked 'I've just made a large investment in Cisco infrastructure in my call centre. If I choose your solution does that mean I just wasted my money?'

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