Deutsche Telekom Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview was very friendly. Since I applied for an internship, there were no technical questions. All questions were reasonable and appropriate for this position. German is not my native language and I could be mistaken, but they treated it understandingly. The only remark is that the job description differs somewhat from what is actually expected in practice, as the position is general and they already base it on the CV of which stack they work.

So, my interview at Deutsche Telekom had three parts: a technical part, a part about my projects, and an HR part. First, the technical round, it was all about checking what I know and how I solve problems. They asked me about Git, OOP basics, and hashing. I also had to code a solution for the 'Valid Parentheses' problem. It was good because they checked both theory and practice. Then, the second round focused completely on my project. They wanted to know what it does, what technologies I used, and why I built it. We really got into the details, especially about JWT tokens and how they handle authentication. They wanted me to talk through my thinking, which was cool. The last round was with HR. It was pretty chill, like a conversation. She asked why I switched from mechanical engineering to software, about my project's origin, and if I'd be okay with moving. I got to ask her questions too. It was nice, and she seemed genuinely interested. Overall, the whole thing was pretty smooth and positive. Everyone was nice, professional, and encouraging. I felt comfortable the whole time.

The interview process was not great, frankly. In just a week, the company managed to show a lot of red flags, which is quite something. The biggest red flag was the HR department. They were incredibly unprofessional. A key part of any interview is discussing compensation, and it's unbelievable that the HR person didn't even pay attention when I was talking about salary. The salary discussion went poorly, and while mistakes happen, the way they handled it showed a lack of respect for employees. They misunderstood my desired salary and offered me less than my current pay. I pointed out the misunderstanding, and they offered me *again* less than my current salary. Seriously, who does that? Both offers were for a senior role, and the salary was about 20% below the average for a senior role in Greece. The final straw was their polite handling of everything. When I sent a polite email rejecting the offer, they didn't even have the basic politeness to respond, not even a thank you. Is this their level of professionalism? A rhetorical question, obviously...