At HDR, a Software Engineer plays a unique and highly impactful role that bridges the gap between advanced technology and physical infrastructure. Unlike traditional tech companies where software is the standalone product, software engineering at HDR directly empowers massive architecture, environmental, and engineering projects. You will build and optimize the computational engines, design automation tools, GIS mapping solutions, and data-driven simulation platforms that allow structural, water, and transportation engineers to design the modern world.

The impact of this position is felt across a wide array of multidisciplinary teams. Whether you are developing custom plugins for CAD software, automating complex environmental modeling pipelines, or building proprietary tools to analyze traffic and water systems, your code directly influences real-world communities. This makes the role intellectually stimulating and deeply rewarding for engineers who want to see their digital solutions manifest in tangible, physical infrastructure.

Candidates joining the team can expect to collaborate with brilliant minds across various engineering disciplines. The work requires a balance of strong software development fundamentals and an eagerness to understand the domain-specific challenges of civil, structural, and environmental engineering. It is a highly collaborative environment where your technical ingenuity is leveraged to solve some of the most complex spatial and physical problems of our time.

The questions you will encounter during the HDR hiring process are designed to evaluate both your technical capabilities and your alignment with the company’s collaborative culture. While the exact questions will vary depending on the specific engineering group and location you are interviewing with, they generally follow consistent patterns. Use these representative questions, compiled from real interview experiences, to guide your preparation.

Background and Project Experience

These questions assess your past technical contributions, your ability to explain complex technical concepts simply, and how you apply your skills to real-world challenges.

• Can you walk me through your resume and highlight a project where you had to solve a highly complex problem?
• Tell me about your educational background and why you chose to focus on your specific area of study.

Preparing for an interview at HDR requires a balanced approach. Because the company is a massive, multidisciplinary engineering firm, the interviewers are highly focused on how your technical skills fit into their existing project workflows.

Technical and Tool Competency – You must demonstrate a strong command of the software and programming languages listed in the job description. Be ready to discuss how you write code, automate workflows, or utilize specialized tools like AutoCAD, GIS, or structural modeling suites.

Problem-Solving & Domain Integration – Interviewers want to see how you approach complex, ambiguous challenges. You should focus on explaining your thought process clearly, demonstrating how you break down physical or data-oriented problems into logical, programmatic steps.

Communication & Collaboration – As an employee-owned company, HDR places immense value on teamwork and communication. You will be evaluated on your ability to explain technical software concepts to non-software engineers and your willingness to collaborate across departments.

Detail Orientation & Organization – Delivering high-quality infrastructure solutions requires extreme precision. You should emphasize your structured work habits, your attention to edge cases, and your commitment to thorough testing and documentation.

The interview process at HDR is characterized by its highly conversational, personalized, and practical nature. While some large tech firms rely heavily on rigid, algorithmic coding platforms, HDR focuses on understanding who you are as a professional and how you will fit into their local office culture. The process is designed to be a two-way conversation, allowing you to evaluate the team just as much as they are evaluating you.

The typical progression begins with an online application, followed by an initial screening call with a recruiter or a department manager to confirm basic details and logistics. From there, you will move into a panel interview stage, which is often conducted virtually via Microsoft Teams or in person at a local office. This panel usually consists of two to four people, including senior engineers, project managers, and team leads who dive deep into your resume, past projects, and behavioral alignment.

For many office-based roles, the final stage of the process includes an invitation to visit the local HDR office. During this visit, you will often receive a tour, meet potential teammates, and sometimes share a casual breakfast or lunch with the team. This gives you a clear sense of the work environment and the local office dynamics.

The timeline above outlines the standard progression from your initial application to the final hiring decision. Most candidates find that the process moves at a steady pace, although the time between the final panel interview and the official offer can sometimes take two to four weeks as local managers coordinate with corporate HR. Use this timeline to pace your preparation, ensuring you are fully ready for the conversational and project-focused rounds.

To succeed in your HDR interviews, you must understand the specific areas where the hiring panel will focus their evaluation. Each round is structured to assess a core component of your professional capability.

Project & Resume Walkthrough

The panel will spend a significant portion of the interview discussing your past projects, internships, or academic research. They want to see that you didn't just participate in these projects, but that you deeply understood the underlying engineering and software principles.

Be ready to go over:

• Technical ownership – Your exact role in the design, development, and deployment of a software tool or engineering solution.
• Problem-solving methodology – How you identified a bottleneck or system failure and the systematic steps you took to resolve it.
• Lessons learned – Your ability to reflect on past projects, identify mistakes, and explain what you would do differently next time.

Example scenarios:

• "Walk me through a custom script or automation tool you wrote. What problem did it solve for your team, and how did you design it?"
• "Describe a project where you had to integrate data from multiple different sources. What challenges did you encounter?"

Engineering Software & Automation

For a Software Engineer at HDR, technical evaluation is often tied directly to how software interacts with physical engineering workflows. You will be asked about your experience with industry-standard design tools and your ability to build software that automates or enhances these systems.

Be ready to go over:

• CAD & BIM integration – Writing code, scripts, or APIs to interact with tools like AutoCAD, Revit, or MicroStation.
• Simulation & modeling – Experience with structural, traffic, or water modeling suites (such as ETABS, GIS platforms, or CFD tools).
• Data pipelines – How you manage, clean, and process large datasets generated by engineering simulations or field sensors.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Bullet list of specialized topics that appear less frequently but can differentiate strong candidates:
  • Custom API development for Autodesk or Bentley software.
  • Spatial database optimization (e.g., PostGIS, Esri).
  • Developing real-time data visualization dashboards for infrastructure projects.

Example questions:

• "How would you write a script to automate the extraction of specific design data from a series of CAD drawings?"
• "Describe your experience working with spatial data or GIS software. How do you ensure data integrity?"

Behavioral & Cultural Alignment

HDR is an employee-owned company with a strong corporate culture centered on collaboration, community impact, and professional growth. The interviewers will spend considerable time assessing your personality, your communication style, and how you handle the day-to-day realities of consulting work.

Be ready to go over:

• Client & stakeholder focus – How you approach building tools that meet the specific, sometimes changing, needs of internal engineering teams or external clients.
• Team collaboration – Your ability to work harmoniously with professionals from completely different technical backgrounds (e.g., civil engineers, project managers, environmental scientists).
• Adaptability – How you handle shifting project priorities, tight deadlines, or ambiguous requirements.

Example scenarios:

• "Tell me about a time when you had to explain a highly technical software concept to a non-technical colleague. How did you ensure they understood?"
• "How do you prioritize your tasks when you are assigned to multiple projects simultaneously?"

As a Software Engineer at HDR, your day-to-day responsibilities will be highly dynamic and deeply integrated with active infrastructure projects. You will not be coding in a silo; instead, you will collaborate closely with structural designers, transportation planners, water resource specialists, and project managers to understand their computational needs and build the appropriate digital solutions.

Your primary deliverable will be designing, developing, and maintaining software applications, automation scripts, and database systems that streamline engineering workflows. This might involve writing custom C# or Python plugins for BIM software, building web-based data visualization dashboards for municipal clients, or optimizing complex mathematical models used to simulate traffic flow or water distribution.

In addition to pure development, you will play a key role in technical consulting. You will meet with project teams to analyze their current manual processes, identify opportunities for software-driven automation, and translate their physical engineering requirements into clear software specifications. Your work will directly reduce project delivery timelines, eliminate manual drafting errors, and allow HDR's engineering teams to design safer, more efficient infrastructure.