OnDeck Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 16 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at OnDeck.
OnDeck
Software Engineer
Senior Average Negative experience No offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Phone screen Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Coding Technical Behavioral
A recruiter contacted me. After submitting my resume, I had a phone screen with their architect, which involved a coding test with three simple questions. I was told I'd be called in for an in-person interview. The scheduling took a couple of weeks due to coordinator vacations and being backed up. My in-person interview was set for 3:15 PM, but upon arriving 10 minutes early, I received an email about a 30-minute delay. I waited and was eventually called in for my first interview with a team lead (not the originally scheduled person) 45 minutes late. At this point, I was no longer interested due to the commute, having another job, and the office environment (cluttered, congested). The interview itself was basic, asking me to search for a number in a sorted array and to code a blocking queue. There was no offer.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- For the phone screen, can you implement a basic algorithm to check if parentheses in a string are correctly matched, using a stack data structure?
- Can you write a function to determine if a given string reads the same forwards and backwards (is a palindrome)?
- Please code a 'blocking queue' data structure.
OnDeck
Software Engineer
Mid Average Positive experience Accept offer 5 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Take home Onsite Offer
Interview formats
Technical Coding Behavioral
The interview process was pretty straightforward for a mid-level SWE role. It started with an HR phone screen, followed by a tech phone screen, and then a Hackerrank assessment. They told me they wanted to speed things up after the Hackerrank, so there might have been an interview in between. The on-site was comprised of 5 rounds: a tech round with senior SWEs, a chat with the director of engineering, an HR values interview, another tech round with two tech leads, and a final interview with the tech lead of the team I'd be joining. I got a call back a few days later saying they liked me but needed to finish interviewing others. I received the offer about a week after that. It was much more competitive than Glassdoor suggests, likely due to older data.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Data structures, algorithms, Java collections, concurrency, and OO principles were covered.
- Typical interview questions were asked.
OnDeck
Software Engineer
Entry Average Neutral experience Decline offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Phone screen Onsite Offer
Interview formats
Technical Coding
I talked to the recruiter first, they told me about the company. Then I had a phone screen with an engineer, which went fine. After that, I went in for an in-person interview with a bunch of software engineers. It was mostly white boarding, some easy some hard. The interviewers were nice and helpful. Then a recruiter gave me an office tour. Noticed people seemed a bit down, not like the happy folks on the website. Also, the snack situation in the pantry was pretty sparse. They offered me a job, but I turned it down. Something felt off, and I had better offers anyway.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Questions about data structures
OnDeck Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from OnDeck interview reports.
“Can you write a function to determine if a given string reads the same forwards and backwards (is a palindrome)?”
Read reports →“Write the code to efficiently find a number within a sorted array, likely using binary search.”
Read reports →“Can you create a stack using a queue?”
Read reports →“Could you write an algorithm that takes an array of daily stock prices over a period and, for each day, outputs how many days into the future the first stock price that was higher occurs?”
Read reports →“How would you manually carry out a SQL injection attack?”
Read report →“Could you implement a block queue using Java?”
Read report →“Could you write a Java class that includes several fields and a constructor?”
Read report →“For the phone screen, can you implement a basic algorithm to check if parentheses in a string are correctly matched, using a stack data structure?”
Read report →“Can you explain the concept of Joins in detail?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 16 OnDeck interview reports.