I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at LinkedIn (San Jose, CA) in Sept 2015
Interview
Recently I had a phone interview with LinkedIn. The coding question (using collabedit) is something like "Search a sorted array for the first element larger than k." I had studied Data Structures and Algorithms extensively and know binary search by heart. So this is pretty easy for me.
However, to my very surprise, the interviewer told me that my code has an infinite loop! I double checked the code and explained it can't have an infinite loop:
During each iteration,
1> hi is updated to (mid-1) or
2> lo is updated to (mid+1)
But it appeared that the return statement was incorrectly indented and inside the while loop.
After the call, I put the code in a file and ran the script. As I expected, there is no endless loop and all tests passed perfectly.
Then I asked the interviewer where the infinite loop came from. During the call, I asked for a hint about the infinite loop and he said that would be too easy. Now that the call was over, he did reply with the following:
"I identified the issue after the call. The issue was caused by an incorrect indentation which you resolved later during the call."
What he said made no sense at all! The indentation issue I mentioned is related to the return statement. If there was an issue with the return statement, the code would terminate prematurely and there is no way to cause an infinite loop.
For those who will have an interview with LinkedIn, be prepared for such non-sense.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Search a sorted array for the first element larger than k
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at LinkedIn (Sunnyvale, CA) in Sept 2016
Interview
Recruiter contacts me and sets up a phone screen. Wonderful job by the recruiter as she explains in detail what to expect and how to prepare. Once phone screen is cleared, I get called onsite. Again, there is a great deal of help from her in explaining everything that I can expect in interviews. Onsite rounds were well organized. All the interviewers were very helpful and knowledgeable.The people were very happy and food was awesome and free. You will have 2 coding rounds (which should definitely go well irrespective of other rounds results). 1 round of code analysis where you will be given a piece of code and asked to find bugs/improvements. Get your basics right here. There will be a test design round in which they test your design skills. A behavioral round with manager which is just a conversation, but very important to get it right.
For people going for interviews in the future , I have the following advice
1. Do all the previous LinkedIn problems found in careercup and glassdoor,in fact just by-heart it (very very important as all the questions are exact same, they have a set of problems that all interviewers use and everything is in these sites). I found this strange.
2. Make sure you do both the coding rounds well. Even though you have other rounds, if you screw up even a single coding round, you will be disqualified irrespective of how well you do in design and analysis round.
3. Show your enthusiasm in the behavioral round.
Will surely apply to linkedin again.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Everything on careercup and glassdoor (just search previously asked linkedn questions)
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at LinkedIn (Mountain View, CA) in Jun 2016
Interview
Had a full day of interview sessions and it was a very good experience. I was asked 2 tech coding questions at the beginning for an hour each. This was followed by a test and code analysis question for an hour. Then had a lunch session for an hour. This was followed by an hour meeting with manager and hour on test design and analysis.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Find indices start and end for a particular value in a sorted integer array with duplicates
I applied online. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at LinkedIn in Feb 2016
Interview
This was an especially interesting experience with LinkedIn. This being the second time I have interviewed with the company, the first time also the experience wasn't worth a mention.
I applied for a Sr. level job and got contacted by a recruiter saying those positions are not open but a Test Engineer position is open.
I told her I wasn't interested in an entry level position that was only for testing. She assured me it was a automation development role. For one, the ambiguity in the title strikes me as off-putting. However, I appreciate the fact that they send a lot of preparatory material links to get you on board for the interview. That's a good move.
Then she scheduled for the interview. On the appointed hour, 2 members of the team contacted me.
From the tone of the interviewer, I could tell LinkedIn apparently does not provide training to interviewers. He asked questions as though he already knew it was a waste of his time and I am not going to be able to perform well.
Throughout he kept interrupting my thought process. I have interviewed with other companies, where the interviewer knows when to shut up and hold his horses. This guy seemed a little too anxious.
I admit I had some trouble answering his questions. I made some mistakes, but I corrected them as well. In the end, I could say I did answer correctly although with some pokes.
Usually when you read online about interviewers assessing you, you are often told the correct answer doesn't matter and your thought process does. However, I can already sense they are going to reject me meaning the thought process really did not matter in this case.
LinkedIn is a great company but I hope they provide some sort of training to interviewers about how to conduct coding interviews and the psychology behind being in the hot seat.
