IBM·Software Engineer

IBM Software Engineer interview experience

No offer

Medium

Negative

London, EnglandPosted Feb 2026 · Candidate report, summarized by Dataford

After applying, I got a link to a HackerRank coding assessment and had to move quickly through it.

The test felt very structured: it was mostly LeetCode-style questions, with a mix of medium-algorithm prompts and additional questions tied to programming concepts. I remember one assessment where the first problem felt medium while the second was hard, and that difficulty jump was the moment I started to realize this wasn’t going to be forgiving.

Once the assessment ended, I waited for updates. For a while it was just silence, then I eventually received a rejection, including language about choosing other candidates that fit the role better. Even though the questions were the main hurdle,

Create a free Dataford account to unlock the full round-by-round breakdown, the questions asked and the outcome.

Read the full report Read the full report

Preparing for this interview?

IBM Software Engineer interview guideThe full process, round by round, with the question bank Practice Software Engineer interview questionsReal questions from this role across companies All IBM interview guidesEvery role we cover at this company