Cox Automotive Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

It was just one final hour-long round, no coding, just resume grilling and some technical questions based on your resume skills. Got the offer 2-3 weeks later. Make sure you know your resume really well and can talk about your past experiences.

So I started with a quick recruiter call, then chatted with the hiring manager about the job and my experience. After that, I went to the Atlanta office for an onsite panel interview with 2 Principal Engineers and 1 Senior Software Engineer. The onsite involved tackling two LeetCode Medium coding problems. It felt like it went well, and they said I passed and wanted to move forward. But then, things got really slow with communication. My initial recruiters were let go, and after waiting about 5 and a half weeks with no news, I had to chase down my new recruiter. They then told me they'd gone with someone else. The actual interviews were good and the engineers were great, but the follow-up from recruiting was messy and slow, especially since I had to ask for updates after weeks of silence.

I applied on the Cox site and a recruiter reached out a few days later. After a quick chat with the recruiter, I got scheduled for an interview with the hiring manager. The interview itself was a bit strange. It was the hiring manager and the lead engineer. The hiring manager asked about my background and how I'd tackle a project. When I asked for more details, they basically told me to answer as if I were in a perfect setup. I answered, and thought it was a good response. But at the end, they said my answer was too idealistic. Then the lead developer asked some really odd questions for a senior engineer role. They wanted to know how I set up my IDE, how to do a "Hello, World!" in Java, and what design patterns I've used. The IDE question was the weirdest. I asked for clarification a couple of times, and they really wanted to know how I install my IDE, what plugins I use, and which one I like best.