Professional networking platform with rich data and ML-driven recommendations.
4 Rounds
~21 Days
Hard
The Interview Loop
Recruiter Screen (30 min)
Standard fit check, behavioral questions, and resume overview.
Technical Loop (3-4 Rounds)
Deep dive into domain knowledge, coding, and system design.
Interview Question Bank
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
LinkedIn values taking intelligent risks. Tell me about a time you took a technical risk on a project and it failed. What did you learn?
#Risk Taking
#Failure
#Learning
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
Relationships matter at LinkedIn. Describe a situation where you had a strong technical disagreement with a Product Manager regarding a feature deadline. How did you resolve it?
#Conflict Resolution
#Communication
#Stakeholder Management
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
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medium
Act like an owner is a core LinkedIn value. Tell me about a time you identified a critical issue in production that wasn't your responsibility, but you took ownership to resolve it.
#Ownership
#Initiative
#Problem Solving
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
easy
How do you prioritize your engineering tasks when you are faced with multiple urgent deadlines and shifting requirements?
#Time Management
#Prioritization
#Agile
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
Tell me about a time you mentored a junior engineer or a peer who was struggling with a specific technology or codebase. How did you approach it?
#Mentorship
#Teamwork
#Communication
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
Tell me about a time you had to push back on a product manager's request to protect the member experience. How did you handle it?
#Communication
#Prioritization
#Members First
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
Describe a situation where you acted like an owner to resolve a critical production issue.
#Ownership
#Incident Response
#Problem Solving
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
Tell me about a time you had a disagreement with a senior engineer on a technical design. How did you resolve it?
#Conflict Resolution
#Collaboration
#Communication
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
medium
Tell me about a time you identified a bottleneck in a system and optimized it.
#Performance
#Initiative
#Impact
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
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medium
Describe a project that failed. What did you learn from it and how did you apply that learning later?
#Resilience
#Growth Mindset
#Self-Awareness
Software Engineer
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Behavioral
•
easy
Give an example of a time you had to learn a new technology quickly to deliver a project.
#Adaptability
#Learning
#Execution
Software Engineer
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Coding
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medium
Given the root of a binary tree, collect a tree's nodes as if you were doing this: Collect all the leaf nodes. Remove all the leaf nodes. Repeat until the tree is empty.
#Tree
#Depth-First Search
#Binary Tree
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Design a class which receives a list of words in the constructor, and implements a method that takes two words word1 and word2 and return the shortest distance between these two words in the list. The method will be called repeatedly.
#Array
#Hash Table
#Two Pointers
#Design
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given a nested list of integers, return the sum of all integers in the list weighted by their depth. Each element is either an integer, or a list -- whose elements may also be integers or other lists. The depth is defined such that leaves have a weight of 1, and the root has the maximum weight.
#Depth-First Search
#Breadth-First Search
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
easy
Given two strings s and t, determine if they are isomorphic. Two strings s and t are isomorphic if the characters in s can be replaced to get t.
#Hash Table
#String
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
hard
Design an algorithm to serialize and deserialize a binary tree. There is no restriction on how your serialization/deserialization algorithm should work. You just need to ensure that a binary tree can be serialized to a string and this string can be deserialized to the original tree structure.
#Tree
#Depth-First Search
#Breadth-First Search
#Design
#String
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
hard
Given a string s, return true if s is a valid number. For example, '2', '0089', '-0.1', '+3.14', '4.', '-.9', '2e10', '-90E3', '3e+7', '+6e-1', '53.5e93', '-123.456e789' are valid.
#String
#Math
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
hard
Given an array of strings words and a width maxWidth, format the text such that each line has exactly maxWidth characters and is fully (left and right) justified.
#Array
#String
#Simulation
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given an array of intervals where intervals[i] = [starti, endi], merge all overlapping intervals, and return an array of the non-overlapping intervals that cover all the intervals in the input.
#Array
#Sorting
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given a binary tree, find the lowest common ancestor (LCA) of two given nodes in the tree.
#Tree
#Depth-First Search
#Binary Tree
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
easy
You have a long flowerbed in which some of the plots are planted, and some are not. However, flowers cannot be planted in adjacent plots. Given an integer array flowerbed containing 0's and 1's, and an integer n, return true if n new flowers can be planted.
#Array
#Greedy
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
There is an integer array nums sorted in ascending order (with distinct values). Prior to being passed to your function, nums is possibly rotated at an unknown pivot index. Given the array nums after the possible rotation and an integer target, return the index of target if it is in nums, or -1 if it is not in nums.
#Array
#Binary Search
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
easy
Given an integer array nums, find the subarray with the largest sum, and return its sum.
#Array
#Dynamic Programming
#Divide and Conquer
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given an array of integers nums sorted in non-decreasing order, find the starting and ending position of a given target value. If target is not found in the array, return [-1, -1]. You must write an algorithm with O(log n) runtime complexity.
#Array
#Binary Search
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Implement the RandomizedSet class: insert(val), remove(val), and getRandom(). Each function must run in average O(1) time complexity.
#Array
#Hash Table
#Math
#Design
#Randomized
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
hard
A transformation sequence from word beginWord to word endWord using a dictionary wordList is a sequence of words beginWord -> s1 -> s2 -> ... -> sk such that every adjacent pair of words differs by a single letter. Given two words, beginWord and endWord, and a dictionary wordList, return the number of words in the shortest transformation sequence.
#Hash Table
#String
#Breadth-First Search
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
hard
Given a graph representing LinkedIn connections, write a function to find the shortest path (degrees of separation) between two members.
#Graph
#BFS
#Shortest Path
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given a nested list of integers, return the sum of all integers in the list weighted by their depth. (Nested List Weight Sum)
#DFS
#BFS
#Array
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given a list of intervals representing a user's work experiences (start_year, end_year), merge all overlapping experiences to find the total years of experience.
#Array
#Sorting
#Intervals
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given an integer array nums, return the number of triplets chosen from the array that can make triangles if we take them as side lengths of a triangle.
#Array
#Two Pointers
#Sorting
#Greedy
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
easy
Design a data structure that supports the following operations: add(number) and find(value). find(value) returns true if there exists any pair of numbers whose sum is equal to the value.
#Design
#Hash Table
#Two Pointers
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
hard
Given a binary tree, design an algorithm to serialize and deserialize it.
#Tree
#String
#Design
#DFS/BFS
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given an array of integers nums sorted in non-decreasing order, find the starting and ending position of a given target value.
#Binary Search
#Array
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given a string s, return all the palindromic permutations (without duplicates) of it. Return an empty list if no palindromic permutation could be form.
#Backtracking
#Hash Table
#String
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given an integer array nums, find the contiguous subarray (containing at least one number) which has the largest sum and return its sum.
#Array
#Dynamic Programming
#Divide and Conquer
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Evaluate the value of an arithmetic expression in Reverse Polish Notation.
#Stack
#Math
#Array
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given a nested list of integers, return the sum of all integers in the list weighted by their depth. However, the weight is defined from bottom up. (Nested List Weight Sum II)
#DFS
#BFS
#Math
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
Given the root of a binary tree, return the lowest common ancestor of two given nodes in the tree.
#Tree
#DFS
Software Engineer
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Coding
•
medium
There is an integer array nums sorted in ascending order (with distinct values) that is possibly rotated. Given the array nums after the possible rotation and an integer target, return the index of target if it is in nums, or -1 if it is not in nums.
#Binary Search
#Array
Software Engineer
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System Design
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hard
Design the LinkedIn News Feed. Users should be able to see updates from their connections, companies they follow, and relevant ads. How do you handle high read/write volumes?
#Scalability
#Database Design
#Caching
#Message Queues
Software Engineer
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System Design
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hard
Design LinkedIn's connection system. How would you efficiently store and query 1st, 2nd, and 3rd-degree connections for hundreds of millions of users?
#Graph Databases
#Scalability
#Data Modeling
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design the LinkedIn Job Search and Recommendation system. How do you ingest millions of job postings and serve relevant recommendations to users in real-time?
#Search
#Machine Learning Infrastructure
#Data Pipelines
#Elasticsearch
Software Engineer
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System Design
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medium
Design a Profile View Counter. When someone visits a LinkedIn profile, the view count should increment. The user should be able to see who viewed their profile in the last 90 days.
#Stream Processing
#Database Design
#Aggregation
Software Engineer
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System Design
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medium
Design a Notification System for LinkedIn. Users can receive push notifications, emails, and in-app alerts for various events (messages, connection requests, job alerts).
#Microservices
#Message Queues
#Scalability
Software Engineer
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System Design
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hard
Design LinkedIn Messaging. Users should be able to send 1-on-1 messages and group messages. Messages should sync across multiple devices in real-time.
#WebSockets
#Database Design
#Real-time Systems
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design a system to detect fake profiles and bot activity on LinkedIn in near real-time.
#Stream Processing
#Machine Learning Infrastructure
#Security
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design a Typeahead Search (Autocomplete) for LinkedIn connections and global search.
#Trie
#Caching
#Search
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design a Distributed Rate Limiter for LinkedIn's public APIs to prevent abuse.
#Distributed Systems
#Caching
#Algorithms
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design a system to track and display trending hashtags on LinkedIn over the last 24 hours.
#Stream Processing
#Heavy Hitters
#Algorithms
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design the LinkedIn News Feed. How would you handle feed generation, ranking, and distribution for users with thousands of connections?
#Microservices
#Caching
#Fan-out
#Databases
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design LinkedIn's 'People You May Know' (PYMK) recommendation system.
#Graph Databases
#Batch Processing
#Machine Learning Infrastructure
#Hadoop/Spark
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design a system to track and display the number of profile views a LinkedIn member gets in real-time.
#Stream Processing
#Kafka
#Redis
#Time-series Data
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design the LinkedIn Job Search and Application system.
#Search
#ElasticSearch
#Scalability
#Database Consistency
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design a Notification System for LinkedIn that handles push, email, and in-app notifications.
#Pub/Sub
#Asynchronous Processing
#Rate Limiting
#Microservices
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design the LinkedIn Endorsements feature. How do you store and query who endorsed whom for what skill?
#Database Schema
#High Throughput
#Caching
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design a real-time messaging system (LinkedIn InMail).
#WebSockets
#Chat
#NoSQL
#Real-time
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
hard
Design a system to detect and prevent spam or abusive content in LinkedIn posts and messages.
#Machine Learning Integration
#Stream Processing
#Rate Limiting
#Security
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design LinkedIn's Typeahead Search (Autocomplete).
#Trie
#Caching
#Low Latency
#Data Partitioning
Software Engineer
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System Design
•
medium
Design a distributed rate limiter for LinkedIn's public API.
#Algorithms
#Redis
#Distributed Systems
#API Gateway
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
Implement a thread-safe BlockingQueue in Java. It should support put() which blocks if the queue is full, and take() which blocks if the queue is empty.
#Java
#Multithreading
#Data Structures
Software Engineer
•
Technical
•
medium
Implement a Delayed Task Scheduler. You have a method schedule(Runnable task, long delayMs). The scheduler should execute the task after the specified delay.
#Multithreading
#Heap
#Design
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
Explain how Apache Kafka handles message ordering and partitioning. How would you ensure strict ordering for messages related to a specific LinkedIn user?
#Kafka
#Distributed Systems
#Message Queues
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
easy
Implement the Singleton design pattern in a thread-safe manner. Explain the Double-Checked Locking idiom and why the 'volatile' keyword is necessary.
#Design Patterns
#Multithreading
#Java
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
Design and implement an LRU Cache that also supports a Time-To-Live (TTL) for each entry. If an entry expires, it should not be returned.
#Design
#Hash Table
#Linked List
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
Implement a Thread-Safe Bounded Blocking Queue.
#Multithreading
#Locks
#Condition Variables
#Java
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
Design a Retain Best Cache data structure. You are given a DataSource interface with a get(K key) method, and a Rankable interface. The cache should evict the lowest-ranked items when full.
#Caching
#Heap
#Hash Map
#OOP
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
Explain how Kafka partitions work and how you would handle consumer lag in a high-throughput LinkedIn service.
#Kafka
#Messaging
#Distributed Systems
Software Engineer
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Technical
•
medium
What happens when you type a URL into the browser? Explain the entire stack with a focus on the backend infrastructure.
#DNS
#TCP/IP
#Load Balancing
#HTTP
Difficulty Radar
Based on recent AI-sourced data.
Meet Your Interviewers
The "Standard" Interviewer
Senior EngineerFocuses on core competencies, system constraints, and clear communication.
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Think Out Loud
Always explain your thought process before writing code or drawing architecture.