Akamai Test Automation Engineer interviews, decoded.

So first there was an aptitude test, and then a coding round where we had to solve two problems. After that, there were two technical rounds and one HR round. It was pretty straightforward, they took about 20 people and then made offers to three of them.

The interviewers aren't technical and ask odd questions like what specific Selenium build number I use, as if they think everyone inflates their CVs with Selenium experience. The whole process is really frustrating. The people they send in don't have useful information and are kind of rude. They focus heavily on Linux questions, which is strange for an SDET role. If they need a Linux expert, they should hire a Linux administrator. I suspect they don't train their interview panel, and they end up losing good programmers because they don't know basic things like what a samba server is or the build number for Selenium.

The interview process included 1 aptitude and technical round, followed by 3 more technical rounds. There were eliminations after each round. The first round covered data structures, algorithms, networks, DBMS, and operating systems. The subsequent technical rounds focused on the topics listed on my resume, along with data structures concepts and computer networks. The approach to solving problems was the main evaluation point in the technical rounds.