J'ai postulé en ligne. Le processus a pris 3 semaines. J'ai passé un entretien chez Netflix (Los Altos, CA) en mars 2011
Entretien
I applied online for a software engineering position at Netflix and received an invitation from a recruiter to interview for the position. After a brief phone screen, I was brought onsite to interview for about 4 hours with 5 people. These interviews were very technical and somewhat intense, but fair. They're very upfront about the high-performance culture and expectations at Netflix (see the deck on their website for more details), which I appreciated.
Following the first onsite interview, I was asked to come in again for another half day of interviews. These interviews were less technical and more about (1) the culture and organization of the work environment that I was coming from, and (2) whether or not I was a cultural fit for the company. I'd advise anyone who aspires to work at Netflix to think carefully about how you will answer these types of questions.
I'd thought that both days of onsite interviews went well, and so I was surprised a couple of days later to hear that they'd decided to pass on making me an offer. I was disappointed, as I'd have liked to have worked there at the time. However, with everything that's happened with their handling of price increases and licensing issues over this past year, not getting the job turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
I did feel that the recruiting process was very fast-paced and organized, more so than some other companies with whom I'd interviewed.
Questions d'entretien [1]
Question 1
Of everyone on your team at your current employer, who would you keep and who would you fire and why?
Seeing the URL shortening service design question caught me off guard at first, but it turned out to be a lucky moment. Just a few days prior, I had practiced a similar architecture problem on PracHub, so I felt somewhat prepared to tackle scalability and data consistency aspects. The process included a recruiter screen, followed by a technical interview focused on system design. Overall, the questions were manageable, but I didn't end up receiving an offer, which was disappointing. The experience taught me a lot, though.
Questions d'entretien [1]
Question 1
Design a URL shortening service (similar to bit.ly). What components would you include in your architecture, and how would you handle scalability and data consistency?
The Netflix interview loop is intense and lives up to its reputation. The recruiters are great, but the technical bar is absolute top tier. After a technical phone screen, the virtual onsite consisted of two deep system design rounds, a practical coding round, and very heavy behavioral rounds focused purely on their Culture Memo. They do not care about how many LeetCode hards you have memorized. They care about how you reason through scale, failure, and ambiguity.
Recruiter screen high level discussion.
Tech phone screen live programming exercise.
Virtual onsite, 3 tech rounds two culture/behavioral.
For mine it was like an out-of-body experience, except when I turned to look it wasn't a body at all; it was a plane. Watched it take off, seemed like maybe the pilot hit the throttle a little hard trying to reach cruising altitude and then.. dunno, maybe he dropped his cigarette under the seat or there was a bee in the cockpit or something because next thing you know he's flailing around while I watch the plane tumbling, helplessly aghast as a wing shears off from the stresses he's inducing. No survivors.
But seriously, good interview process. Very helpful recruiter team that will spend time detailing the process and expectations. Exercises are very realistic applied engineering stuff, not brain teasers or obscure algorithms or stuff you haven't done since college. Interview process may be different across the org so YMMV. I interviewed with the Content and Business Products side of the house (i.e., tools for studio, production, not streaming to end users) and the coding, sys design, and data modeling rounds all reflected that.
My advice to you: study the OSS software they publish, know your stuff and *stay calm*.
Questions d'entretien [1]
Question 1
Describe a time when you had conflict with someone outside your group