Principal Financial Group Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 606 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
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30 roles · 606 reportsCandidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Principal Financial Group.
Principal Financial Group
Software Engineer
Intern Average Positive experience Accept offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Offer
Interview formats
Behavioral Coding
I applied and got a HireVue about 2 weeks later, which was the first round. It had 12 questions, some video, some text, unlimited attempts and prep time. Standard behavioral questions like tmay and why principal. Then, 4 days after submitting the HireVue, I got a final round. This round was a mix of behavioral and technical. The behavioral part had common questions like tmay, challenge faced, feedback and how you responded, and current project. The technical part was a live coding question, simple, easier than leetcode easy. I didn't do great but I talked through my process and they gave a lot of hints and let me google syntax. Then, 3 business days after that, I got the offer! It came as an email to schedule a call to 'share an update'. We scheduled it for the next day and I got the offer via call.
Confirmed questions5 questions
- Can you introduce yourself?
- Tell me about a challenge you faced.
- Describe a time you received feedback and how you acted on it.
Principal Financial Group
Quantitative Developer
Mid Difficult Negative experience No offer 2 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Background check
Interview formats
Coding Technical
I talked to the team and they were really good and professional. But the recruiter was kinda weird, like she didn't know how to send the file to the team. I sent it before Monday 6pm, but she only messaged me back on Tuesday saying she didn't get it, even though I did send it. I told her I could upload it to GitHub after we talked for like an hour or two, but she never got back to me. Then, three days later, I followed up and she said I got mixed reviews, which is super vague. I feel like I did an unpaid internship because they used my code, and the least they could do is let me know. I guess they found someone else internally.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- How would you generate the Fibonacci series in Python?
- Could you write a program to download a zip file from a URL, extract an Excel file from it, clean the data, and then pull out the tables?
Principal Financial Group
Data Scientist
Mid Average Positive experience Accept offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Technical screen Background check Offer
Interview formats
Technical Behavioral
So, there were 3 rounds of interviews and then 1 assessment test. Round 1 was a Technical Round, mostly about the basics of Data Science and Statistics. They asked about Machine Learning Models, Overfitting-Underfitting, Evaluation Metrics, and the Law of Large Numbers. Round 2 was another Technical Round, focusing on Decision Trees, my projects, and ML Fundamentals again. Round 3 was the HR Round, with questions like 'Why Principal?' and 'Why Data Science?'.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Regarding random forest, what is chosen randomly?
- Could you define overfitting and explain how to fix it?
Principal Financial Group
Associate Product Manager
Entry Difficult Positive experience Accept offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Phone screen Technical screen Onsite
Interview formats
Case Behavioral
The interviewers were knowledgeable and made me feel comfortable. They asked about the industry, presented case studies, and gave me situations to solve. The interview aimed to challenge me, understand my thought process, my views, and my sense of right and wrong.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Tell me about a case study.
- What are your thoughts on ethics in this industry?
- Can you provide a guesstimate for X?
Principal Financial Group Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Principal Financial Group interview reports.
“Find the nearest parking spot for a car at a given location using parking structure data in JSON format.”
Read reports →“How would you identify the lighter of 9 eggs using a scale only twice if one egg is lighter than the others?”
Read reports →“Do you have any idea about how to count the number of visitors on a website?”
Read reports →“Regarding the example program, can you explain why you used the static keyword in the class header?”
Read reports →“Could you write code to find the largest prime number within a given set of natural numbers?”
Read report →“Can you write code to test if a digital clock is functioning correctly?”
Read report →“Can you explain how Spring Security works and how to configure it with OAuth2.0?”
Read report →“How would you go about creating an asset allocation model for someone who is risk-averse?”
Read report →“How would you implement an attendance system to show the student who attended maximum and minimum classes at the end of the month? What is the simplest approach?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 606 Principal Financial Group interview reports.