LinkedIn Interview Process: What Software Engineers Should Expect

The LinkedIn interview process for engineers, as its careers site describes it, typically includes an introductory conversation with an engineering recruiter and a technical interview, followed by interviews with a few LinkedIn engineers and leaders. Those interviews may explore communication, coding, craftsmanship, design and leadership, and the final decision may take several weeks. You can rehearse the rounds in a LinkedIn mock interview.

Process at a glance

Checked November 2026. Stages are from LinkedIn's How We Hire page and the Interviewing section of its Engineering careers page, both read on November 2, 2026. LinkedIn publishes no round lengths or total timeline.

The process, in LinkedIn's words

LinkedIn says "every job at LinkedIn is unique, and so is our hiring experience," and frames its general process as four stages: application, conversation, interview and decision. Its Engineering page is more specific about the middle two. A member of the recruiting team manages every opening, and an engineering recruiter guides you through the process and shares updates at each stage, along with resources such as its interview-prep videos.

What each round tests

Recruiter conversation

LinkedIn says the recruiter wants to learn more about you and ask some basic questions. If you move forward, a video call with the hiring manager or another team member may follow, with more detailed questions about your experience, skills and technical expertise. Have specifics ready about systems you built and what you personally decided.

Technical interview

LinkedIn names this step for engineers and does not describe its format, so ask your recruiter. Note its rule on AI: use AI tools in a coding or specialized assessment only when the interviewer or interview module explicitly says you may. Practice working unaided, so it does not matter either way.

Interviews with engineers and leaders

LinkedIn says each interview "will focus on a different skill area," and its Engineering page names the likely ones:

• → Communication: it is first on LinkedIn's list, and every interviewer takes notes to share with the hiring team, so what you say out loud is what gets written down.
• → Coding: solving a problem with working code while explaining it.
• → Craftsmanship: LinkedIn does not define it. We read it as the quality of what you write: naming, tests, and what you would do before shipping.
• → Engineering design and architecture: how you structure a system and defend the structure.
• → Leadership: LinkedIn lists it among the skills interviews may explore, so have a story ready even if you do not manage people.

LinkedIn adds "among others," and says that depending on the role you may present a case study or do a whiteboard exercise, and that your recruiter will share what you need to know ahead of time.

Decision

The hiring team then assesses each candidate's potential to succeed in the job. LinkedIn says this "may need several weeks," so a quiet stretch after your last interview is not by itself a bad sign.

LinkedIn's rules on AI

LinkedIn publishes a page on candidate AI use. In short:

• → Live interviews: do not use AI unless the recruiting team has said in advance that it is part of the format for that role.
• → Assessments: use AI only when the interviewer or interview module explicitly permits it.
• → Resumes: you may use AI to draft or refine them, as long as they reflect your real experience.
• → Preparation: "Using AI to research roles, explore concepts, or practice mock interviews is encouraged."

LinkedIn also says to be ready to discuss anything you submit in more detail, and to ask your recruiter if you are unsure what is allowed.

How to prepare

• ✓ Watch LinkedIn's own material first. Its Engineering page links interview-prep videos, and your recruiter can tell you which ones fit your role.
• ✓ Practice saying your reasoning. Since notes are shared with the hiring team, an idea you never say cannot be credited. How interviewers score communication explains why.
• ✓ Get comfortable with graphs. LinkedIn's product is a network of people, so degrees of connection are a natural place to start. The graphs guide covers breadth-first search and more.
• ✓ Understand streaming. In 2015, LinkedIn's engineering blog called Kafka "the circulatory system in use at LinkedIn." Know what ordering and delivery a log can guarantee. Queues and async is a good start.
• ✓ Prepare leadership stories at any level. Use the STAR method for a project you drove, a team you depended on, and a system you inherited.
• ✓ Read a second reference. LinkedIn is part of Microsoft but publishes its own process, as above. The Microsoft interview process is a useful comparison, with its stress on clarifying questions and reflection.

Practice with Devana

Devana's question bank holds 34 LinkedIn questions as of November 2, 2026, written to reflect how LinkedIn interviews: its products, its published values and the round types candidates describe. They are our questions, not leaked ones. How they divide up says a lot about where to spend your preparation.

18 of the 34 are rated hard. The topics that come up most often are Scalability, Machine Learning, Systems Design, Caching, Databases and Graphs. To see how this set compares with the rest, read what the whole question bank shows, counted.

Our LinkedIn questions return to the member graph: degrees of separation, people you may know, the shortest introduction path and ranking a feed. The design set covers feed delivery, a distributed commit log and near-real-time search indexing, and the behavioral set asks about explaining something technical to a non-technical audience and taking over someone else's system.

Frequently asked questions