Infoblox Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So I had this terrible interview experience. Right at the start, I told them I wanted 26 LPA since my current fixed is 18 LPA, and they agreed. Then they rushed things, saying they needed to fill the role fast. They made me come in person and squeezed all the interview rounds into a single day, even though I had to travel 25 km. The interviews went okay, and I even passed the UCAT test they gave me. I thought things were looking good, and I was waiting for HR. But then, after a week, they suddenly said I needed another technical round. I did that too, but they just asked random puzzles that had nothing to do with my AI background. Then they told me I was selected but downgraded the role from SE2 to SE, and the offer was 21 fixed + 4 variable. When I asked why, they just said I was lucky to get selected at all, as they normally have 3 rounds. I'd already done a coding test, an in-person AI discussion, and another technical round. It feels like a total waste of my time and energy.

I had a phone screening, then I interviewed with the hiring manager, 3 engineers, and a VP. In total there were 5 technical interviews, each lasting 45 minutes. The interviewers asked a good variety of questions, not super deep dives but still challenging since each interviewer asked a different type of technical question. I got to ask questions too, but I didn't get to meet the teammates I'd be working with.

So, an Infoblox recruiter hit me up on LinkedIn around October. I decided to go for it, and today I just wrapped up the onsite, only to get a rejection email about an hour later. I'll break down my experience from both the recruiter and interview side. Recruiting: 1) This company is kinda weird, and their recruiters seem a bit clueless. They don't send emails, they just call you! If they can't get you, they'll message you on LinkedIn or email. 2) Okay, maybe recruiters aren't super trained, but their coordinator is something else. The meeting invites they sent didn't have calendar invites. For three onsite rounds, they sent three separate emails, and I had to confirm each one. Each email had a different Zoom link. Seriously, why is it so hard to put all the meetings in one Zoom link? Or at least send a summary email? They can't even handle basic organization. 3) They gave zero context about what each round would be. I went through 5 rounds and never knew if it was coding or system design beforehand. They didn't even provide basic online IDEs or whiteboard tools. Interview Loop: 1) First Round: Had a behavioral session with a Director. Pretty standard stuff. 2) HR Round: Yep, HR came after the first round. Mostly just bragging about Infoblox, its culture, pay, and how nobody leaves. 3) Logical Personality Test: This tests your leadership potential and personality. You have to schedule a meeting with the coordinator to do it under their watch. 4) Technical Round: I thought this was onsite, but it's an extra round. We talked about my projects, I coded an LRU cache, they looked at my side project, and asked why I was still looking for a job after being laid off. Some unprofessional questions. Onsite: 5.1) After round four, silence. When I followed up, I learned the last interviewer was sick. You'd think they'd at least give feedback before going on leave, instead of holding up the whole process. 5.2) First onsite: The manager, who used to work at Amazon, told me they changed the role I was interviewing for without telling me. They asked system design questions about collecting and persisting event logs across different clusters, making sure all data was persistent in the same cluster while avoiding data skew. 5.3) Second onsite: Talked to a data engineer. We discussed a system design problem with two events: one with device and location, the other with fdqn, timestamp, deviceId. I questioned why they couldn't be merged at the client, but they insisted it wasn't possible, seemingly just to ask the question. After system design, we did a coding test (Two Sum), then 3 Sum, which I finished in about 10 minutes. 5.4) Third onsite: Another manager. Asked how to route events with numbers and words to different queues. I suggested adding tags. They asked me to implement it, and I initially thought it was system design, wondering if I needed to do infra as code or call SQS. Turned out to be a coding question about validating numbers, but the interviewer seemed to misunderstand it and it felt like a trick question, testing if I could be fooled rather than my skills. They should know the question well. 5.5) Got rejected an hour after the onsite. Asked for feedback, but they said no feedback and good luck. I can't believe how unprofessional this company is. They make decisions based on feelings, not data. Their 'friendly' culture seems to make them weak and unwilling to accept leadership from more capable people. The whole interview experience was bad, with undertrained interviewers who didn't know what to ask or how to evaluate candidates, leading to a messy process.