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4,346 principal engineer interview questions shared by candidates

Round 1: coding round, 2 leetcode problem, 1 medium, 1 hard - Leetcode no - 64. Minimum Path Sum,295. Find Median from Data Stream Round 2: HM round, current project and some design questions Round 3: Architect round, current project and LeetCode Medium 240. Search a 2D Matrix II Round 4: Current project and Kafka Internals
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Principal Software Engineer

Interviewed at Saviynt

4★
Jul 29, 2025

Round 1: coding round, 2 leetcode problem, 1 medium, 1 hard - Leetcode no - 64. Minimum Path Sum,295. Find Median from Data Stream Round 2: HM round, current project and some design questions Round 3: Architect round, current project and LeetCode Medium 240. Search a 2D Matrix II Round 4: Current project and Kafka Internals

1) How would you parse a large (60GB) log file into a csv and what language would you use for it. 2) Describe what happens in the browser when a user visits an address. The questions are senior level at most. Also, tip, even though the first question is more of a sysadmin than developer one make sure to answer that you'd use JavaSCript because to them, JavaScript is the best thing since sliced bread. The interviewers felt like they were senior devs with inflated titles. The questions should be easy but they are really look for something very specific and something that they themselves understand.
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Principal Developer

Interviewed at Security Compass

3.8★
Apr 2, 2023

1) How would you parse a large (60GB) log file into a csv and what language would you use for it. 2) Describe what happens in the browser when a user visits an address. The questions are senior level at most. Also, tip, even though the first question is more of a sysadmin than developer one make sure to answer that you'd use JavaSCript because to them, JavaScript is the best thing since sliced bread. The interviewers felt like they were senior devs with inflated titles. The questions should be easy but they are really look for something very specific and something that they themselves understand.

The tech questions are very generic about software development principles: recursion vs iteration, heap vs stack, DI, TDD, time & space complexity, concurrency and multithreading, ... The home test is an absolute waste of time. Can't give much info but it was simple, it was more about the quality of the tests, handling highly concurrent scenarios and whatnot, but the funny thing is that the feedback they provided was not even about what I submitted. Is like they reviewed someone else's code. Asked for a second review or at least to double check they didn't mix reviews and didn't hear back from them. Very disrespectful and unprofessional.
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Principal Software Engineer

Interviewed at King

3★
Nov 11, 2022

The tech questions are very generic about software development principles: recursion vs iteration, heap vs stack, DI, TDD, time & space complexity, concurrency and multithreading, ... The home test is an absolute waste of time. Can't give much info but it was simple, it was more about the quality of the tests, handling highly concurrent scenarios and whatnot, but the funny thing is that the feedback they provided was not even about what I submitted. Is like they reviewed someone else's code. Asked for a second review or at least to double check they didn't mix reviews and didn't hear back from them. Very disrespectful and unprofessional.

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