CarMax Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Three rounds of interviews happened, first a recruiter call, then two technical interviews, followed by a 3-hour panel interview covering both technical and behavioral aspects. After that, there was a 'meet-and-greet' with a team I thought I'd be joining. This felt a bit misleading because the team's tech stack and responsibilities didn't align with the job description at all. They didn't communicate for over a week and then sent an automated rejection. While the people I spoke to were great, the candidate process could definitely be improved. I invested over 6 hours in discussions just to get a generic rejection letter with no feedback. CarMax, you can do better.

Had a quick 15 min phone screen with the recruiter to chat about my tech background, current projects, and what I'm looking for. Then, a 30-minute phone screen with the IT manager and a technical lead where they hit me with some technical questions. After that, there was an online personality test that also included a logical task with geometric shapes. The main event was three back-to-back video calls on Teams, with short 10-minute breaks. The first was a 50-minute video call with a Senior Software Engineer and a Lead Software Developer. They drilled me with technical questions for the first half, and then had me write a coding function on screen during the second half. The function needed to take a collection of Cars (with Make, Model, and MPG) and return the average MPG for a specified Make. The next 50-minute video call was with the Product Manager and UX Lead. This one focused on my experience, specifically asking for examples of cross-team collaboration, dealing with product deliverables, and how I've handled challenges. Finally, a 50-minute video call with two Senior Managers where they asked me standard behavioral questions. I needed to provide specific examples related to Courageous Leadership, Teamwork, Analysis and Decision Making, Communication, Customer Service, Results Focus, Associate Development, and Functional Expertise.

The process was super fast. Everyone at Carmax was very nice and they all seemed to really enjoy working there. I felt very comfortable talking to everyone because they were all very friendly. The process took about a month. Two phone interviews and then I was invited for a super day, which consisted of two interviews one hour each. The first was behavioral and the second was technical. Thought I messed up the coding portion of the technical, but everything else was fine.