Poly Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 12 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Poly.
Poly
Software Engineer
Entry Average Negative experience No offer 2 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Offer
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding
So I applied for this new grad role. The interview process was really bad, honestly. They really didn't respect my time. It started with an initial video interview that lasted about 30-45 minutes with someone from HR. We talked about my experience and education, and she asked me some behavioral questions. She was nice and seemed honest, but she wasn't really clear on the technical skills they were looking for. After that, I had a technical interview with a Software Developer. He asked me some questions about logic and general programming. They said they'd let me know last week, but they never did. Even though I told them I was waiting on an offer from another company, they didn't seem to care. HR still doesn't even know if I actually had that interview with the Software Developer. I'm actually happy they didn't hire me. Don't bother applying to this company.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Can you explain how an elevator works?
- What's your approach to testing an API?
- Tell me about your biggest achievement.
Poly
Software Engineer
Mid Average Neutral experience Accept offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Onsite Panel Presentation Offer Background check
Interview formats
Technical Coding System Design Behavioral Presentation
First, I had a brief phone call with a recruiter. Then, a few weeks later, I had an onsite interview with four people: the recruiter, two Senior Engineers, and a Project Manager. One engineer asked about Java and concurrency. The other discussed a current software product's architecture and asked for improvement ideas. The project manager asked a technical question. Both engineers and the manager asked for a challenging past project example. About a week later, I had a second onsite, just a quick chat with a VP. He asked about building failure-resilient systems and then asked if I had seen War Games, describing the plot when I said no. A week after that, the recruiter let me know I didn't get the job. Later, the recruiter contacted me again with an offer, which was lower than I wanted. I negotiated for a bit more. The entire process spanned approximately 2.5 months. They did a background check after the offer.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- How would you explain flipping an image horizontally in-place?
- Can you describe, without writing code, the process of rotating an image 90 degrees in place?
- How can you design a system that is resilient to failures?
Poly
Software Engineering Director
Director Average Positive experience Accept offer 10 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Phone screen Onsite Offer
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Other
The whole process took a really long time, like, ages between each step: applying, the initial phone call, meeting the hiring manager over lunch, then the first round of interviews, the second round, and finally the decision. Things only sped up when I got another offer. This was a while ago though, maybe more than 5 years back, and they say they've made it a bit faster since.
Confirmed questions3 questions
- Some interviewers just wanted to chat and maybe convince me to join the company.
- Others were focused on assessing my technical skills.
- And some asked more abstract questions, like 'if you think of the company as a bicycle, what part of the bicycle would your team be?'
Poly Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Poly interview reports.
“Could you implement a function, say Char* iota(int number), such that it returns the string representation of the input integer? For example, inputting 1234 should result in the string "1234".”
Read reports →“Can you reverse a linked list in one pass?”
Read reports →“Given an array of size N+1 containing numbers from 1 to N with one duplicate, how would you find the duplicate? Provide multiple solutions and determine the best one.”
Read reports →“Could you explain what this function does? static int whatDoIDo(int n) { int count = 0; while (n > 0) { count += n & 1; n >>= 1; } return count; }”
Read reports →“Have you seen the movie War Games?”
Read report →“What's the outcome if a hook is conditionally applied”
Read report →“How would you explain flipping an image horizontally in-place?”
Read report →“Can you explain the mechanics of an elevator?”
Read report →“Can you explain how an elevator works?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 12 Poly interview reports.