Athenahealth Software Engineer interview typically runs 3-6 rounds: recruiter call, hiring manager screen, coding interviews, and a final behavioral round. It usually takes a few weeks and is notably coding-heavy and rigid.
$125K
Avg. Base Comp
$230K
Avg. Total Comp
3-5
Typical Rounds
2-4 weeks
Process Length
We've seen Athenahealth care less about polished storytelling and more about whether candidates can stay precise under pressure. Multiple candidates reported that the technical work was framed around billing, claims, and validation logic, even when the underlying mechanics were classic data structures and algorithms. That means the real signal is not just solving a problem, but recognizing the domain shape quickly and translating it into clean code without getting lost in brute force paths.
A recurring theme is that the interviewers seem to value fully working, optimized solutions over exploratory reasoning. One candidate noted there was little interest in how they reasoned once the answer path was clear, and another said the behavioral portion stayed short and focused on fit rather than open-ended discussion. We've also seen that the questions often use healthcare-flavored inputs like claim charges, patient data, and hierarchical datasets, so candidates who can map those scenarios to standard coding patterns tend to look much stronger.
The non-obvious trap here is pacing. Our candidates report that the process can feel straightforward at first, then turn into a time sink if you underestimate how quickly you need to move from first pass to final solution. The people who do best here are the ones who can keep their code tight, pass edge cases, and show they understand the role’s domain context without overexplaining it.
Synthetized from 2 candidates reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Athenahealth process.
I went through four rounds total: an online assessment, two technical interviews, and a managerial round. The process itself was a bit slow because of a few reschedules, but the interviewers were generally friendly. The online assessment was on HackerRank and had one SQL question, two Spring Boot questions, and one multiple-choice question. That set the tone pretty well, because the rest of the process kept circling back to Java, Spring, SQL, and basic problem solving rather than anything overly specialized.
In the first technical round, they spent a good amount of time on my previous projects and then gave me a coding problem about finding the most loyal customers from two different files, specifically people who had visited more than one unique page. The second technical round was more of a system design discussion, where I had to design an appointment booking system. That round felt more open-ended and was less about writing code than about how I would structure the service and think through the flow. I also got a few basic Java questions along the way, including core OOP concepts, exceptions, collections, and threads, plus some SQL and Spring Boot basics.
The managerial round was the weirdest part. I answered the scenario-based questions and the basic Java follow-ups, and I even got told I did well, but I still ended up rejected afterward. I later saw the status change in Workday to “No longer in consideration for this position,” and there was no separate rejection email. My main takeaway is to be ready for straightforward DSA, core Java, SQL, and Spring Boot questions, plus one system design round and a lot of project discussion. If you’re preparing, I’d focus on array/string problems, hash maps, and being able to explain your past work clearly.
Prep tip from this candidate
Practice array/string problems and hash map-based questions, since the coding rounds leaned on simple rearrangement and unique-page/customer style logic. Also be ready to explain your projects clearly and walk through a basic appointment-booking system design, along with core Java, Spring Boot, and SQL basics.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Athenahealth
Write an algorithm to return the character with the longest continuous repetition, breaking ties by earliest occurrence
| Question | |
|---|---|
| 2nd Highest Salary | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Prime to N | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Comments Histogram | |
| String Shift | |
| Random SQL Sample | |
| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Find the Missing Number | |
| Upsell Transactions | |
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| First Touch Attribution | |
| Raining in Seattle | |
| P-value to a Layman | |
| Minimum Change | |
| Size of Joins | |
| Address Schema | |
| Download Facts | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Permutation Palindrome | |
| Delivery Estimate Model | |
| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| Google Maps Improvement | |
| Average Quantity | |
| Find Bigrams |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
The process may begin with a recruiter call to cover your background, interest in the role, and basic fit. In some cases, this is the first step before being moved into the hiring manager interview.
A phone screen with the hiring manager focuses on behavioral questions and motivation for the role. Candidates were asked why they were interested in Athenahealth, why the role appealed to them, and to clarify parts of their background.
This stage is a live technical interview, sometimes run on HackerRank, centered on a LeetCode-style coding problem. The questions can be domain-flavored around billing and claims, and candidates are expected to produce a correct, optimized solution under time pressure.
Some candidates reported multiple back-to-back coding interviews after the first technical round, including one 60-minute interview followed by two 90-minute coding sessions. These rounds continued the same pattern of algorithmic problem solving, often with billing and claims themes such as claim validation, matching, graph distance, or hierarchical data traversal.
The process may end with a final behavioral round focused on fit, communication, and motivation. This interview was described as fairly standard and conversational, with short-answer style follow-ups about background and interest in Athenahealth.