I applied through university. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at IBM (Chantilly, VA) in Feb 2012
Interview
simple phone screening. they asked generic questions like who are you and why you want to work for them. In person, they asked so many technical questions that are useless to the job. It didn't matter how you answered them. as long as they knew you had 1/4 of a brain, they hired you and trained you
Got a link to a platform where you were asked to answer a series of questions. The answers had to be recorded, every answer was supposed to be answered in less than 3 minutes. Beforehand, the advice was given to prepare using the STAR framework.
Important: once started, you can only interrupt the process once, since they don't want you to have unlimited preparation time for the answers. If it gets interrupted (e.g. due to network connectivity or by closing the tab) a second time, the process is stopped and your interview is basically aborted.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Tell us about a time you disagreed with a coworker and how you resolved the disagreement.
It was diffucult. Was asked complex DSA and SQL queries.
The interviewer was good and professional.
There were total 4 rounds, I attended 3 of them.
Round 1 was online test - Apti, DSA and SQL
Round two was just DSA and Apti
Round 3 was interview - Questions based on AI, Python, Resume based, SQL
The interview process was very dull, unenthusiastic, and impersonal. They asked very technical systems engineering questions, mostly focused on infrastructure, DevOps fundamentals, troubleshooting, and general backend/system design concepts. The interviewers did not seem particularly engaged, and the conversation felt more like a checklist than a real discussion about the role, team, or candidate fit.
There was not much effort to explain the day-to-day responsibilities, team culture, or growth opportunities. Overall, the process felt rigid and transactional. The technical questions were fair, but the experience itself was not very welcoming or energizing.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked how I would troubleshoot a Linux server or production system that was experiencing high CPU usage, including what commands I would use and how I would narrow down the root cause.
