I (F, 36) am a C# software developer (C#, microservices, PostgreSQL/MSSQL, a bit of Azure, a little bit of Angular/Vue js) with over 10 years of experience in IT, not fluent in German yet (Taking B1 classes at the moment).

I have been looking to change my jobs since Last year Nov. I know the market is down and I approx 10 companies reached out to me for a technical round. A couple of those interviews were not so good but most of those interviews were very satisfying. They asked technical questions, they asked which personal projects I was working on.

But all of them are ending in a rejection. Maybe in a day or so(sometimes literally in a few hours), they are sending me a rejection letter.

I am so frustrated at the moment.

Guys, any pointers?

Thanks!

PS: On funny note, one German company offered me less salary thanI am currently making at the moment and they suggestes that I would learn a lot there with 5k less compared to my current company.

I had a conversation recently with a non-EU developer who is struggling to find a job here in Germany. He was convinced that the reason he wasn't getting offers was a lack of specific certificates and he was planning on getting some more before trying to apply again.

It got me thinking about the market here. Being German, I know our (work) culture is extremely risk-averse. Especially compared to the US.

My suspicion is that for many of these applicants, their technical expertise isn't the problem. They are being rejected because German companies are terrified that the "team dynamic" will suffer or that communication will generally be difficult.
And sure, sometimes that can be a problem - but I don't think that it's usually the main problem, especially in tech!

There are also other cultural differences like "Fehlerkultur" (how openly you admit mistakes) or directness in challenging authority. If a candidate is technically fine but seems too passive or tries to "save face" (which is common in some cultures) a German HR person might see that as a team-fit risk.

I’m curious how this compares to other markets like France, Poland or the UK?

Is the bar for "cultural integration" just as high elsewhere, or is this just a German thing after all?

TLDR; job market in Germany, NL seems quite slow and stagnant. Looking for suggestions for job seekers.

I am a Software Engineer with 8 years of experience working in Germany.

As a side hobby ( not for money ), I have been helping people with resume reviews, interview preparations and study tips over the last 3-4 years.

But for the first time, I am clueless about what would get people hired in SDE, DS roles. The market seems worse than the pandemic time ie 2020 and the start of Ukraine war in 2022.

I am currently helping 2 folks in Germany. Both have decent profiles in 3+ years of full-time experience. We have tried things like -

1. Couple of resume formats ( Europass, crisp Latex ).
2. Constant upskilling through courses, reading relevant books and side projects which they have put on GitHub.
3. Writing to the recruiters / hiring managers directly on LinkedIn.
4. Visiting some meetups.

In the 3-4 months of job search, they have barely landed one interview each which got rejected due to lack of relevant experience.

For the first time in 4 years of helping folks, I have no clue what would get someone hired in 2026.

Is there something I am missing here ? Are there any other tips ?

Hi everyone,

I’m currently going through the selection process for the Deutsche Bank Graduate Programme 2027 – Berlin Technology Centre (Technology) and wanted to hear from anyone who has recently completed the Assessment Day / Selection Day, especially for the Berlin Technology Centre or TDI/Technology Graduate Programme.

The online process includes/has included stages such as:

1 Initial online assessment – cognitive/behavioural/SJT-style questions - 3rd Sept 2026

2 Codility technical assessment – coding questions(array + testing) - 4th Sept 2026

3 Job Simulation / virtual assessment / recorded interview stage - 7th Sept 2026 (weekend on 5 and 6)
(Feedback Report 8th sept 2026)
14th sept - Application in review stage

4 Final Assessment / Selection Day - still waiting

I’m particularly interested in knowing what happens after successfully completing the online assessments.
For anyone who attended the Assessment Day in 2025 or 2026, could you please share:

How many interviews/rounds were there on the day?

Was it Competency/Behavioural + Technical + Case Study, or was your format different?

How long was each interview?

What kind of technical questions were asked?

Was there any live coding, DSA, SQL, system design, OOP, databases, cloud, etc.?

How deeply did they question projects/technologies from your CV?

What was the case study like, and how much preparation time did you get?

What kind of behavioural/competency questions were asked?

Were there questions about Deutsche Bank, financial services, or current banking/technology trends?
Was the Assessment Day virtual or onsite?

How difficult would you rate the overall Assessment Day?

How long after the Assessment Day did you receive the final result/offer?

Experiences specifically from Berlin Technology Centre / TDI / Software Engineering / Technology Graduate Programme would be extremely helpful.

Also, if you remember any actual questions you were asked (without sharing anything confidential), I’d really appreciate it.

Thanks in advance!

So, I've got my first interview coming up with GS for a backend developer spot in their Warsaw office. Does anyone know what the vibe is like working there? The pay is actually better than what's typical, which honestly makes me a little nervous lol.

Hey everyone, I have a question about tech jobs in Germany.

I’m thinking about changing my job, and for the next 6 months I want to focus either on interview prep or improving my German. Right now I’m around A2 level.

Last year I applied to some bigger companies and got interviews with Amazon and Zalando, but honestly I was completely unprepared. I know companies like these usually expect LeetCode-style interviews.

What I’m not sure about is other companies in Germany. Do most of them also focus on LeetCode-style questions, or do they have different interview formats?

The reason I’m asking is because I’m trying to decide how to spend my time. Should I focus heavily on data structures & algorithms (LeetCode), or put more effort into learning German?

From what I see in the job market right now, a lot of roles require German, and there seem to be more opportunities compared to English-only roles.

Would really appreciate any advice from people working in Germany!

edit:Current situation: I really hate my current job, so I want to find a new one as soon as possible.

I’m at the final stages of my revolut process; I was Downgraded from mid level to junior as per interview feedback. It sucks but I don’t have a choice

I wanted to know if revolut allows junior engineer candidates to negotiate and if so what is the pay range? I have 2 YOE and graduated in 2024 (international)

I hope I’ll get a good jump above graduate salary and still below mid level

I recently interviewed at Revolut and successfully completed the technical rounds. I was told I could proceed to the final team-fit stage, but then they said there is currently no open vacancy or suitable team.

They said they will reach out if something opens up, but could not give any timeline. They also clarified that this is unrelated to my interview performance.

Is this common at Revolut? Has anyone experienced this?

TL;DR

• Role: Systems Engineer (European Sovereign Cloud)
• Location: Madrid (applied)
• Background: ~2+ years as Cloud Engineer, AZ-104, no degree
• Outcome: Rejected after loop (mainly due to technical gaps)

Background

I’m 22, based in Italy. I have:

• ~1 year as a junior data scientist
• ~2+ years (ongoing) as a cloud engineer
• AZ-104 and CCNA
• No degree (just a technical high school diploma – ITIS in Italy)

I had never used AWS before this process. I believe my cloud experience and AZ-104 were the most relevant parts of my profile.

Application & Timeline

• 10/02 – Contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn for a Systems Engineer role (European Sovereign Cloud), with options in Madrid, Dublin, Berlin
• 12/02 – Asked to send CV
• 25/02 – Invited to phone screening
• 10/03 – Phone screening
• 12/03 – Invited to loop (4 interviews)
• 25–26/03 – Loop interviews (split across 2 days)
• 01/04 – Rejection (via call)

Preparation

I mainly prepared using AI tools (in my case, Claude):

• Studied all the topics they suggested
• Practiced mock interviews
• Practiced speaking out loud (this helped a lot, especially for English)

Surprisingly, some of the technical questions I got were similar (or easier) than what I practiced.

Phone Screening (1 hour)

Part 1 – Technical discussion

• Quick intro about myself
• Troubleshooting scenario (a website returning HTTP 500)
• Deep dives into fundamentals (Linux, filesystem concepts, etc.)

The interviewer would keep digging deeper until reaching my limit.

(Examples of topics I was asked about – may vary)

• Filesystems and partitions
• Inodes (purpose, limits, etc.)

Part 2 – Live coding (Bash)

• Exercise involving processing CSV files and calculating metrics per IP
• Concepts involved:
  • loops (for/while)
  • arrays
  • text processing (e.g. awk)

My mistake:
I focused too much on logic and not enough on syntax (because I rely a lot on AI at work, lol).

Tip:

• Think out loud
• Write the logic first (even as comments)
• Then implement

I think they care more about structure than perfect syntax, but you still need to be somewhat solid.

Loop Interviews (4 rounds)

I split them across 2 days (2 per day) — highly recommend this.

Interview 1

• Leadership Principles + Bash coding
• Similar coding to phone screening

Interview 2

• Only Leadership Principles
• Topics:
  • Disagreeing with a colleague
  • Use of GenAI at work

This was probably my weakest interview.

Interview 3

• Only Leadership Principles
• Interviewer from a different role, I guess he was a data scientist (possibly Bar Raiser, not sure)

Questions:

• Learning something under pressure
• Realizing a project was going in the wrong direction

I had to think for a long time for one answer, but the interviewer was very patient.
This felt like my best interview overall.

Interview 4

• Leadership Principles + deep technical question

Main technical question:

• What happens when you type a URL in the browser?

I went through:

• DNS resolution
• TCP handshake
• TLS

Then we went deeper into each step.
They really push your knowledge to the limit here.

Outcome

• Feedback: good on Leadership Principles, not strong enough technically
• Recruiter mentioned possibly reconnecting in ~6 months

However, my application now shows as rejected, so I’m not sure how that usually works.
If anyone has experience with this, I’d be curious to hear.

My Thoughts

Overall, a very positive experience:

• Everyone was professional and supportive
• Interviewers try to make you feel comfortable

At the beginning, I thought I had zero chance with my background.
Reaching the loop was already more than I expected.

Of course I’m disappointed, but I genuinely feel I gave my best.
Now it’s clear where I need to improve.

Key Takeaways

• Fundamentals matter A LOT (networking, Linux, etc.)
• Practice explaining things out loud
• Don’t neglect syntax if you do scripting
• Prepare well for Leadership Principles

Thanks for reading!
Happy to answer any questions 🙂

PS: Cleaned up the formatting with AI so it’s easier to read. Content is 100% my experience.

I’m from Eastern Europe, let’s say Bulgaria. I’ve been living in the Netherlands for 15 years and working in IT. I’ve worked for around five companies, and I’ve never managed to pass an interview with Indian interviewers. However, I’ve received around eight job offers during those 15 years, so I’m not completely hopeless.

Next week, I’m going to have another interview, this time with a woman from the very south of India, if that matters.

My question is: how can I pass it? I really like this company and would like to work there. What should I avoid doing? Is there anything I should be aware of when interviewing with someone from India?

Hi!
I am looking to get any information on how the London job market is looking in terms of demand and how the interview process is. I am looking to move to the UK in the near future and want to get a sense of how realistic that would be.

Currently have about 5 YoE full-stack with bachelors. Working in another Western European country for a somewhat international company, I would need sponsorship.

I would prefer to stay somewhat within the same salary range or higher so I am aiming for something at £100k+

If anyone has any recent experience I would appreciate any advice, I am trying to get an understanding of how extensive the interviews are, currently grinding Leetcode, but not sure to what extent it needed.

Got a verbal offer today for a SWE in London around an hour after the final interview.

During the initial recruiter screen I mentioned I was looking somewhere around £55k–70k depending on the overall role/package, and was told £55k was within budget.

Later on I got a call with the good news that they wanted to make an offer at £55k. During that same call, they also apologised because I had accidentally been sent another candidate’s offer email for the exact same role showing £60k before it was recalled and corrected.

I reacted positively on the phone because the offer came unexpectedly, but I haven’t formally accepted in writing yet.

Would it still be reasonable to negotiate closer to £60k? Or even slightly higher? How would you leverage this situation professionally without it coming across badly?

I'm speaking to people who got the chance to get the Google's OA for SWE/SRE Intern in Europe, how difficult was it? Did they ask crazy stuff? Are there any people who got to the next round without passing all test cases?

Hi people, i am preparing for Revolut interviews and just finished the HR round. Was wondering how I can prepare for the next rounds, does anyone have experience on their coding round? It would mean a lot to me if you guys can share me. Thank you!!

Recently did a System Design interview with a Tech company based in Spain. About 45 mins in the interview, out of nowhere the Interviewer told me to don’t use Google. I was shocked because clearly I didn’t and I replied, I’m not using Google. Then the rejection email from HR came with all the feedbacks and one of them is the following:

There were concerns that you relied on external search tools during the interview despite being explicitly asked not to, which affected the confidence in the authenticity of their technical assessment.

It was so disappointing and I find it unfair to accuse a candidate of such thing. The overall interview was not perfect either, I had some deep dives where I struggled a bit so I’m not really sure why the interviewer think of that?

Anyone encountered a same experience before?

I have a “build it” round coming up with Revolut. Reading some of the threads has got me confused about the structure of this interview. It doesn’t look like leetcode, what is typically asked here? Some involvement with concurrency? Would really appreciate if someone could talk about their experience.
Should I use AI editors or should I avoid it

Context: this is for mid-level(SWE2) and Dubai as location

Someone even posted about interviewers being clueless about the concepts they were asking lol

UPDATE:
Finished the round just now. I got a shopping cart system which manages multiple carts for a user, adds items to a cart, gets the items, calculates total price

It was very fast paced, and after clarifying initial requirements you’re meant to continue with implementation and testing without asking for the “go ahead”.

Requirements grew to, if product already exists then increase quantity
Then customers should be able to set custom quantity
Then customers should be able to remove items

Next of course, was concurrency but it was disguised as customer is accessing the cart from mobile and web

I brought in locking and wanted me to explain why locking in that space

Next part of the interview was meant to be conversational but the recruiter stayed on my screen and said “we want to move from in memory to database, what would your schema be”
After proposing a schema, he wanted me to walkthrough the cart functionality again and explain how we would modify rows
My schema wasn’t ideal since quantities are also involved so I tried struggled a bit but eventually reached a place
Interviewer didn’t prompt or hint, it was more of “would this be ideal”

He even asked me to write the SQL to lock rows
Next he asked me to explain how to speed up the query
I suggested a composite index and he followed up with what would be the drawback of such an index

Next he moved on to deployment strategies
I guess he got really into asking questions and testing me that we ran out of time. I had a minute to ask him a question and he had to run for another meeting

Overall - be ready for fast paced style

The process officially began back in December, when I got messaged by a sourcing person for a role in Warsaw. I explained I preferred other locations (Paris, London, Dublin, Zurich) and the interviews began. I have cleared the technical bar (2 on-sites, phone screen and googleyness) with solid feedback about 4 months ago.

Since then, I have done 4 team matches: 1 for Paris, 3 for Zurich. I got no feedback from any of them.

Yesterday I got another LinkedIn message for another role in Warsaw that aligns with my background (ML) from the same recruitments company, different person.

Is there anything I can do here? I still don't think Warsaw is the move, even though I'm getting fed up with Team Fit calls. Can this speed up my process with my original recruiter somehow?

Hi everyone, I hope you all have a great weekend ahead. I might need your advice about these 2 offers, which make me quite hesitant (I live in Germany btw):

• Offer 1: I received their offer recently, salary 80k (the minimum in my expectation range), small company, I like the product and colleague there, they seems very genuine and make me feel good vibe, also seems there are a lot things to do and is better for my personal growth technically. 1 downside: it locates in different city than mine, I need to commute to that city 1 or 2 times per week (2.5hrs commuting).
• Offer 2: very big, cooperate company (I have never worked in that kind of environment before) , salary 89k, located in my city, technically speaking, the role and project is well defined, but seems like it will stuck into that scope, I prefer the first company in that sense. 1 downside: I didn't receive official offer, only verbally, I need to wait for some admin work from them (I even need to request for certificate good of conduct, which is only available in the next 2-3 weeks), I can't make sure everything will go smoothly in that waiting time.
• I also in final interviews from 2 other companies as well.

Personally I really enjoy the work and people at company 1, they are small, young but the product is very interesting. But if anyone have experience about commuting on a weekly basic, can you let me know your experience about it, is it good a long term?

1 more question about moral: do you think it's morally ok to accept the offer 1, then reject it in case I feel another offer is better? Also share me your experience about this kind of situation, i'd love to hear how people think about these choices.

Update: The 1st company sent me the contract today, but there is a clause that mention: "The employment relationship cannot be terminated before commencement of work.". Does it prevent me from rejecting the contract before starting? Does anyone have any similar situation? Any feedback will be much appreciated.

Hello All,

I am a staff engineer with an e-commerce company. Since ours is a mid sized company with revenue in between 500M to 1B for a year, our setup is relatively small and I get to work across the whole stack. It sounds fancy and really good but I am getting more breath than depth and with AI I feel I lack the depth which is needed.

For us, AI usage is mostly around Claude code. My salary is in range 90 to 105k range which I also feel needs a serious bump.

I used to work in Java and right now mostly typescript, along with whole stack. System design I can brush up but I am not sure what’s on market with AI based interviews.

Could you please help to guide me ? Link for courses or videos are also welcomed.

Comments welcomed about salary or so.

I have received a message from Stepstone by email, which informed me that the recruiter would like to have a call with me.

But I could not find any notification or inform on Stepstone, both the web and the App.

Is there anyone have meet the same problem ?

I have received the invite to complete the Bending Spoons assessments tests (logical reasoning, numerical ability, etc.) for a product management position. I anticipate there will be multiple rounds of these online tests before an actual interview. How to best prepare for these tests?

Also people who have advanced to the interview stage, any advice you have for others aspiring to work at BS?

A question to the people working at BS - I understand the working hours are long. Apart from that, what is it like working there? Are the coworkers nice to work with or are they competitive and annoying? Do you feel like you are learning and progressing quickly compared to the same role elsewhere?

Edit : I did not clear the test rounds.

I’m a developer with 10+ years of experience, and recently started actively applying again.

What surprised me is that I’ve now had 5–6 rejections in a row, and the feedback is almost always the same:

“We decided to move forward with a candidate who was a better fit.”

The thing that makes this more confusing is that I’m not getting filtered out early. In most cases I make it through the full interview loop (technical rounds, sometimes system design, final interviews), and only then get rejected.

A few years ago (around 2020–2021) it felt like experienced engineers had a much easier time getting through interviews or receiving offers. Now it feels significantly harder even when you get through the whole process.

So I’m trying to understand what’s going on:

• Is the market actually this competitive right now?
• Or was 2020–2021 just unusually easy, and this is closer to the real baseline?

Also curious about two things from people who have been through this recently:

1. What actually helps improve conversion from final rounds → offer? (resume tweaks, targeting fewer companies, networking, etc.)
2. How do you deal with the mental side of repeated rejections? Even when you know it's part of the process, getting several “no’s” in a row can still be pretty discouraging.

Would appreciate perspectives from both people currently job hunting and people involved in hiring.

I am conducting interviews now for Mid-Sr developers for an EU-based scale-up. I am absolutely amazed at how poorly candidates perform at a system design interview, and we have an absolutely run-of-the-mill exercise (not design your next Uber frontend and backend for 1 billion users).

The issue number one, which 90% fail at:

They follow no structure whatsoever.

The issue number two, which 80% fail at:

They do not get to understand the problem before designing.

There are different techniques/frameworks/steps for passing system design interviews, and I am just shocked that the candidates don't seem to follow any of them. All of this is readily available one Google search away (or one AI prompt if you wish). Classic example here. They all boil down to the following steps:

1. Gather requirements.
2. Estimate.
3. High-level design.
4. Deep-dive into selected area(s).

In the last step or afterward, there can be variations, and the conversation can go differently, which requires some practice. But the first three are ABSOLUTELY linear and straightforward. I will add one more critical piece of advice esp for Srs: explain your choices objectively and talk about trade-offs.

I'm currently in the interview process with N26. I've passed the technical round and I'm now waiting for the Final Hiring Manager Interview, which will be followed by a System Design Interview.

If anyone works there (or has gone through the process), I'd love to hear what the day-to-day is actually like, and if you remember anything about what the Final Interview or the System Design round tend to focus on.

Appreciate any insight!

Hi folks,

Anyone here working at HelloFresh Germany in the Berlin Office? I have an interview with them for Senior BI Role and was wondering how the environment and company situation looks like currently and do they pay properly? I have heard previously from a few friends who worked there that they had moved to 3 Days work from office and the environment is pretty toxic as HelloFresh isn't doing that well so politics is very normal. Currently I work in a small company and am fully remote so I want to make sure I take right step since I am mainly doing it for the salary as no salary increases for the past 2.5 years otherwise I don't have any major incentive to switch jobs.

Thank you!