SolarWinds Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So as a freshman student but with several years of commercial experience, I applied for a summer internship at Solarwinds. We set up a phone call with an HR rep, which was fine and had the usual questions. After that, they asked me to submit a written description of my projects – like my role, how it went, and what I learned. Then came an onsite interview with 2 developers from the hiring team and a different HR person for another role. We started by talking about my past experience, then some tech questions. It was supposed to be an hour, but the chat went well and we kind of lost track of time. When they noticed, the interviewer quickly ran through some C#-specific questions and that was it. About 2-3 weeks later, I got an offer.

So I had two rounds of interviews. The first one was supposed to be 30 mins but ended up being 1.5 hours with two interviewers. The first interviewer asked good questions, the second one didn't have good social skills and couldn't ask questions clearly. The first hour was fine, but the last 30 minutes they asked stuff I haven't worked on, so it didn't go smoothly. I explained my project well though, so I thought I had a 50/50 chance. The second round was supposed to be a one-hour coding interview. The same interviewer who asked questions poorly joined again with a new interviewer. He started asking about microservices again. It was obvious he didn't know much about microservices but kept asking questions, maybe to understand the architecture. Only in the last 10 minutes did the coding round start with Kadane's algorithm, which I solved in 10 minutes including edge cases. I thought there would be a third round but didn't get a call back. Very disappointing experience.

The interview began with an online meeting where they introduced the company, product, team, and role. We discussed my background, outlook, and what we both hoped to get out of the position. Next, there was an informal get-together with the team at their office in Brno, Czechia, which was followed by a technical assessment. During the coffee chat, we got to know each other and talked about team life in a really relaxed and friendly way. The manager and team lead then conducted a technical interview for about two hours. This involved some technical questions, reviewing code snippets, and suggesting improvements or refactoring. I also had to build an algorithm for a small problem. I really liked this interview style because it felt like actual teamwork and gave us both a better sense of each other than those automated coding tests. After the interview, we took a quick walk through the offices, which are typical open-plan spaces but have a great view of Petrov. Working from home is also an option. I felt their team's working style really resonated with me; the people are bright, the atmosphere is welcoming, and the product is engaging. I received the job offer about a week later.