Shutterstock Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 25 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Shutterstock.
Shutterstock
Software Engineer
Mid Easy Positive experience Accept offer 1 round
Interview process
Technical screen
Interview formats
Coding Behavioral
The interview experience was focused on assessing candidates' experience, ability to solve real-world problems, and how they'd fit with the team, rather than purely DSA questions. Senior engineers conducted the interviews and asked candidates to complete small coding exercises live, primarily to observe their thinking and communication skills. The overall process felt practical and direct, without being excessively technical.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Could you start by telling us about yourself?
Shutterstock
Software Engineer
Entry Easy Positive experience No offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Phone screen Technical screen Offer
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding
The process had three rounds, but I only got through two before getting an offer elsewhere. First, there was a short call with HR to talk about Shutterstock and my experience. Then, I interviewed with the Hiring Manager, where I got some behavioral questions, followed by in-depth technical questions and a brief debugging task. The third round was with Engineers and was supposed to be a technical round with a coding problem, but I didn't get to that part.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Tell me about yourself and your experience.
- Can you explain core Java concepts in detail?
- Could you identify and fix the issue in this code snippet?
Shutterstock
Software Engineer
Senior Average Negative experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Technical screen Technical screen Technical screen
Interview formats
Coding Technical
Four interviews were scheduled on the same day. There was a technical issue during one of the live coding challenges, which was not the candidate's fault, so the interviewer conducted the interview differently. The next morning, I received an email of rejection. A lot of time was wasted. I think it's better to conduct interviews step-by-step or remove the rest of the rounds if the candidate was not already eligible from previous rounds.
Confirmed questions2 questions
- Coding challenges in JavaScript
- Coding challenges in React
Shutterstock Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Shutterstock interview reports.
“Write a simple version of a standard Linux utility program.”
Read reports →“Can you calculate the degrees between the hands on a clock?”
Read reports →“Given a search query, how would you rank images like 'beach house' higher than an image of just a door, when both relate to the term 'house'?”
Read reports →“Given an array of strings like @[@"file2", @"folder22", @"folder10", @"file1", @"folder100", ...], can you describe how you'd write a method or function to sort these strings predictably, for example, getting "file1", "file2", "folder2", "folder10", "folder100" instead of the default "folder10", "folder100", "folder2"?”
Read reports →“Regarding traditional iOS memory management (not ARC), could you explain the difference between using 'release' and 'autorelease'?”
Read report →“Can you implement a T9 dictionary?”
Read report →“Could you implement a simple version of T9, first to complete a word and then to predict a word?”
Read report →“Could you write a unit test for a simple function?”
Read report →“How would you implement a join for multiple JSON objects?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 25 Shutterstock interview reports.