Splunk Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So I interviewed with Splunk and Cisco, and it was a really good and professional experience. It started with a Karat screening, which had three parts: System Design where we talked about distributed vs dedicated servers and I did a high-level design for a game parlour card machine. Then Angular, where we went over dependency injection, Signals, and RxJS operators. And finally, a Coding part where I had to build a UI screen from a picture using HTML, CSS, and JS. After passing Karat, HR got my info and set up four on-site interviews. There was a DSA round with two medium Codility problems. Another round mixed DSA with Angular and RxJS questions. Then a System Design round where I architected a concert booking platform. Lastly, a Manager round to chat about my current project's architecture, behavioral stuff, and what I'm looking for. It ended with HR talking about the offer. No negotiation happened, but the offer was pretty competitive and I was happy with it.

So I did this Karat interview, which was pretty cool and a good way to show what I can do. The tech part was solid, and I liked the questions and how they ran it. But then, after I talked to HR, things got weird. I was upfront about my current salary and the offer I have, and told them I wanted about 30% more than that offer. But HR just jumped to the conclusion that I'm all about the money, and didn't even think about stuff like company culture or growing with the company, which are big deals for me. It really sucked that the interview just stopped because they assumed that, instead of really looking at my skills and what I'm interested in. Hope they change how they look at candidates. Money's important, yeah, but people care about other things too. A deeper look would help them see what candidates are really about and what they could bring.

I went through a really frustrating interview process for a Principal Software Engineer position at Splunk Hyderabad. It took several weeks and had a total of seven interview rounds, which felt way too long and made me question their hiring decisions. The HR kept saying my feedback was good and I was on track for the Principal role after each interview. But, in the end, they offered me a Senior Software Engineer role instead, and the salary was even lower than what I'm making now. If they thought I wasn't a good fit for the Principal role, why didn't they realize that earlier? It feels like a waste of time for everyone involved. It also makes me wonder about their company culture. If this is how they handle hiring, it might be how they run things internally too. Looking back, it's probably a good thing I didn't end up there. I'd tell anyone looking at Splunk, especially for senior positions, to be careful and get clear answers about the role, pay, and the whole interview process upfront. My experience lacked transparency and respect for my time and skills.