Kong Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was pretty clear and organized. It mostly focused on my past work. It started with a Hiring Manager screen, then a Take Home Assignment. After that, there was a Technical Screen that built on the take-home and asked deep questions about my experience. Then, I had 2 rounds with Product Managers and a final round with the Head of Engineering. The recruiter was really helpful and communicative all the way through. The whole thing took about a month.

First I spoke with a recruiter who told me about the company and the interview process. Then I had a call with an engineering manager who described the product, team, and tech. After that, things got weird. I had a panel interview with some engineers where I was given documents about requirements and asked to find gaps. They seemed uninterested in my questions. I had a week to complete this assignment. The next interview was supposed to be a review of my assignment, with questions and a technical discussion. Instead, it was mostly aggressive, unrelated technical questioning, including random algorithm, language-specific, framework-specific (even though they knew I hadn't used it), and architecture questions. I wasn't warned about the format, making preparation impossible. The other engineers were hostile, seeming more interested in tripping me up than evaluating me.

Had a 1-hour meeting with the hiring manager, then a 1-hour session with the recruiter. After that, there were 2 hours of interviews with the team, consisting of two interviewers at a time. These 2-on-1s can be tough as you can't really connect with either interviewer. It ended after that because I didn't do well in the first two stages. The third interview got cancelled. Failed interviews in 1st and 2nd stages. Ended there because failed interviews in 1st and 2nd stages.