The Zappos Family Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

It was a standard process. I had to complete some brain teaser questions within 45 minutes. The questions were moderately difficult; one question was related to data structures and another one was basic string manipulation. The interviewer was available to answer my questions and provided guidance.

I applied online and got a coding challenge the next day that I had 24 hours to complete. The challenge involved consuming their REST URLs and implementing some Algorithms. I created a NetBeans maven based web project using a custom MVC (Servlet centric approach), Jersey client API's, URL API's, some business service components, Controllers and presentation pages. I passed the coding challenge. Then, I had a 30-minute non-technical HR telephonic interview focusing on company culture and core values, which I also passed. After that, there was a technical phone interview with 3 Technical people. They asked about my past and current projects, some basic Java questions (Interfaces, Abstract classes, Design patterns), some programming in a Shared Document, Exception handling, SQL related questions & Queries. I wrote a recursive program for a basic series and we discussed breaking conditions and time complexity. They also asked about overloading, overriding, OOP basics, and String related questions like reversing a string. There were also questions about Database normalization and quarries. My interview went well, and they said they wanted me for a F2F interview and HR would contact me for next steps to come to Vegas for it. Unfortunately, I received a rejection email and received no reply when I tried to contact them. During the telephonic interview, there was a lot of background noise, making it hard to understand them.

I applied online. The first step involved recording myself answering culture and trivia programming questions via webcam. They used a platform that gave 3 chances to record. The programming questions, which were in Java, were easy. For instance, 'What does the 'final' keyword do?'. About a week after submitting the first part, I got an email to schedule a Skype interview with two engineers. This second round included more culture questions, like "If you had to plan a parade, what would be the theme?", and one technical question about rhyming strings. A week after that, the college recruiter contacted me to schedule a third interview. I found out I passed the second round, but unfortunately, they had already filled the software engineering internship. The recruiter offered to apply me for a different role, but I was ultimately rejected.