I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Zalando (Helsinki, Southern Finland) in Jan 2024
Interview
The interview process was fairly complicated and long: it took around 3 months from the initial application to the offer.
The interview process consists of several parts:
- HR Interview, where they describe the role and you have a chance to briefly describe your experience;
- Home coding exercise: basic algorithms and data structures. I used LeetCode and the Grokking Algorithms book to prepare and it definitely helped;
- Hiring Manager interview, where they elaborate on the role description and ask deeper questions about your relevant experience;
- Round of Final Interviews: Coding, System Design and General Tech, each lasting for 1 hour. They can be spread across several days or be all in 1 day, depending on interviewers' availability. I feel like all interviews' difficulty was fair to the role.
Zalando has resources for potential candidates, where they describe the interview process and provide recommendations on how to approach each step. Study them, it helps a lot.
The only issue I had during the interview process was the waiting times between steps which induced my anxiety and made the whole process more stressful. On the other hand, if you are confident in how you handled previous steps, you can use this time to prepare for next ones.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Describe REST APIs that you have designed or implemented
Thank you for taking the time to provide valuable feedback on your candidate experience so far at Zalando; we always enjoy the opportunity to speak with candidates like yourself. Please be assured that we will share your insights with the responsible Talent Acquisition teams.
- Talent Acquisition Team
Other Junior Software Engineer interview reviews for Zalando
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Zalando (Berlin) in Jul 2025
Interview
HR - HM - 3 tech rounds. In total less then 3 weeks. It's fairly fast and well structured. 3 tech rounds are general tech ( very closely related to your previous role and the role you are interviewing ), DA, and then system design is also very related to the role. Each tech round is 1 hour, it can come in different orders cuz for me system design came first. In the end the hr give me a feedback session.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
It was a backend + data role. A lot of database postgre stuff. And also cloud stuff. Like how kubernetes work? People are very nice.
It was organised and straightforward. I had 1 HR screening after OA then I had a round of 4 interviews (coding-sys design-bar raiser-hiring manager)
It focused on Java mainly and I talked about my past experience.
Thank you for providing us with this feedback on your interview experience! We are very happy to hear that it was an enjoyable moment for you and that we can soon welcome you into our team. We’re excited for you to start!
- Talent Acquisition Team
The process is straight forward but there are too many of them. First talking to the recruiter then a coding challenge, and then another online with a manager supervising and asking questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Why did you choose Zalando?
What are your experiences with projects mentioned in the resume?