I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Salesforce (San Francisco, CA) in Jul 2008
Interview
A friend referred me, they give out bonus for referrals so I gave my resume to him and he passed it on. I got a call from a recruiter who setup an hour long phone screen with a manager. The manager talked to me for a bit about what salesforce does and what his team does in particular, so I got the idea I was interviewing for his team in particular.
We talked about my current job a bit, how aggressively I was looking for a new one, and then he asked a few general conceptual uestions that anybody who had real experience would be able to answer. Then the recruiter set up a day a week later for me to come in and be interrviewed in person.
The all day interview consisted of 3 interviews with other developers, lunch with the manager, and a programming test. The test itself was quite easy, seems like it was more just to ensure that I actually had the experience I said I had. Lunch was good and we talked a lot about why I was looking for a new job and what the team was looking for. They also made clear that if it wasnt a fit for their team but they liked me that they would pass my resume on to other teams.
I was asked a lot of questions, from whiteboarding code to conceptual stuff. One of the interviewers asked real hard questions and we actually got into some interesting discussion, I guess that sealed the deal. I was given an offer a week later.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One of the interviewers asked me to write two algorithms for parsing xml, one that was as memory efficient as possible, the other that was as optimized as possible.
The technical interview was much tougher than I anticipated. I faced a DSA question related to word searches that required optimizing a brute-force approach with a Trie. It was intense, but the practice I’d done on PracHub the week before really helped solidify my understanding of the problem-solving techniques. The behavioral round felt lighter, focusing on teamwork and project experience. After a couple of days, I received an offer, which I happily accepted. Overall, it was a challenging yet rewarding experience.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Word Search II - given an m x n board of characters and a list of words, return all words that can be formed from sequentially adjacent cells; had to optimize the brute-force backtracking with a Trie to pass the time limit
The interview process started with an online coding assessment that included DSA and problem-solving questions. After clearing the test, I had two technical interview rounds focused on data structures, OOPs concepts, DBMS, and project discussion. The final round was with the hiring manager where they asked about teamwork, problem solving, and career goals. The interviewers were professional and the process was smooth overall.
Went through 3 rounds. First round was a technical interview - it was a take home assessment. I didn't pass the test cases but still went through to the next round. The onsite had 1 behavioral, 1 system design, and 1 technical Leetcode style interview. It was in person on a whiteboard.