I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Capital One in Jan 2023
Interview
They call it a three step process, but it's closer to 8+. 1. Talk to the recruiter 2. Code screen 3. Interview "Power Day" 3a. Behavioral interview 3b. Behavioral interview 2 3c. Case interview (details below) 3d. Tech interview - system design 3e. Tech interview - coding 4. Team fit interview (they insist this isn't an interview but I had to meet three hiring managers before getting an offer, so I would absolutely call this an interview)
Interview questions [6]
Question 1
Code Screen: I won't put the actual questions here, but the code screen was 4 algorithm (LeetCode style) questions that you have to implement over the course of an hour. I don't think you have to finish the whole thing to pass, but the first two are very simple and should only take a moderate coder 15-20 minutes at most. The third one was also a simple solution but took a little longer to implement. The fourth question was the only one that had constraints that prevented me from using the simplest brute force solution.
Behavioral interviews: Each of these consist of three standard "describe a time where you..." manager questions. The caveat here is that you have to answer in the SAR format (Situation, Action, Result). They tell you this up front and they mean it. Stick to the script and say: The situation was (...) My actions were (...) The results were (...) If you deviate from that, your interviewer will get lost very quickly.
Case interview: I expect these vary depending on your interviewer, but mine was a simple business case and they gave me a code snippet that was meant to be a partial solution to that business case. The interviewer and I discussed what the code was currently doing, if it solved the use case, and what changes we might make to improve it (and also actually making some changes to the code). So it was a combination of code comprehension, code editing, understanding the use case, and critical thinking.
System design: I thought this was a pretty standard system design question. Draw out your architecture, say what kind of technologies you'll use and why, describe some of the interactions between your components.
Team fit interview: This was my biggest gripe with the whole process. No one in the above sections is actually on or related to the team you'll be interviewing for. If you pass all of those, you then talk to a potential hiring manager and they decide if you're a fit for the role. As I said above, I still very much consider this part of the interview process because hiring managers can and will pass on you for little things or things out of your control -- e.g. my first one passed on me because I admitted Java/Spring isn't my preferred tech stack; my second one passed on me because they were actually looking for a tech lead and not a manager; my third apparently liked me enough and I did get an offer. If that didn't happen, I'm sure I could have eventually run out of potential hiring managers.
The process is lengthy and I can appreciate that they're not just Leetcode tech interviews but are designed to better determine skills from the candidate. However, I was applying for a people manager position and was recruited for a backend team, despite my resume clearly identifying my experience on frontend teams in the past. Regardless, I was advised to proceed since I had management experience. I made it through the power day and my feedback was that while my management skills were strong, I lacked experience in the backend systems they were looking at. Understood, I just wish that had been communicated all around in a better way or to have that interview count towards a frontend team as well.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a banking application (system design interview).
I applied online. I interviewed at Capital One in Feb 2025
Interview
It was smooth and happend to be on three different dates. There was a two behavior ,1 system design, 1 live coding and 1 case interview, which I found to be not prepared for.
The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Capital One (California, MD) in Aug 2024
Interview
My first call was with the recruiter from CapitalOne. He talked for 50 minutes non-stop about CapitalOne and he was boasting of his own expertise in recruitment and how he can just glance a resume and tell about that person. I think some level of humbleness is must for a recruiter and also must allow the other party to speak.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard behavioral questions mostly cloned from Amazon. See CapitalOne's principles.