BNSF Railway Software Engineer candidates report coding assessments, recruiter contact, technical screens, and long final loops that combine scenario-based coding, system design, code discussion, and behavioral interviews.
$120K
Avg. Base Comp
$145K
Avg. Total Comp
5 rounds
Typical Rounds
1-2 months
Process Length
BNSF Railway Software Engineer candidates commonly describe a process that starts with an independent assessment before recruiter and technical conversations. Assessment formats varied: candidates reported Codility challenges, an on-demand recorded assessment, and a self-directed coding screen. Reported problems included arrays and hashing, airplane-seat arrangement, and other real-world scenarios; some candidates were told not to use AI tools and to remain in the assessment tab.
Technical screening may not match the label given by recruiting. One candidate expected an assessment review but instead encountered behavioral questions and system design. In later interviews, candidates report live coding in a screen-shared personal IDE, with limited interviewer guidance. Practice leading the clarification process yourself: state assumptions, narrow the scope, implement a maintainable solution, and discuss time and memory complexity. Railway-themed constraint problems appeared in one account, but the broader skill was handling an ambiguous scenario rather than recalling a domain-specific answer.
Final loops were reported as four to five hours, often with five 45- to 60-minute sessions and short breaks. Candidates described repeated coding, a class-based implementation that had to run, system design covering requirements, APIs, architecture, scalability, and security, plus behavioral questions throughout. Prepare a system you have built well enough to explain its trade-offs, and have concise examples of solving difficult problems, seeking senior input, and delivering outcomes. Evidence on the exact sequence is varied, so expect format differences between interview paths.
Synthesized from 4 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Bnsf Railway process.
The most frustrating part of this process was being told I would receive an offer and then watching the company go silent. The technical interviews themselves were uneven. During the first one, the interviewer gave me a coding problem and told me to solve it, but he seemed disengaged and may even have left the meeting midway through. That made the round especially awkward because I had very little interaction or feedback while working through the problem. The second interviewer was much more helpful and gave me an easier object-oriented programming question, so that conversation felt more like a normal technical interview.
The process can also include an automated coding screen that you complete on your own time, with AI explicitly prohibited. One of the concrete problems used in that format involved arranging seats on an airplane. After the assessment, there may be a recruiter screen, where the role’s travel requirements are discussed; I was told the job involved a lot of travel.
After my interviews, I was told to expect an offer. However, no official offer arrived, and I received no meaningful updates for about a month. The company eventually sent a rejection letter without explaining why the decision had changed. My main takeaway is to treat any verbal indication as tentative until written paperwork arrives. For the technical side, I would prepare for a self-directed coding assessment as well as an interactive OOP-style problem, and I would clarify the amount of travel with the recruiter early in the process.
Prep tip from this candidate
Practice translating a real-world seating constraint, such as airplane seat arrangement, into code, and review how to model a small problem with objects and classes. Also ask the recruiter for a concrete estimate of the role’s travel requirement.
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Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Bnsf Railway
The task is to implement a shortest path algorithm (like Dijkstra's or Bellman-Ford) to find the shortest path from a start node to an end node in a given graph. The graph is represented as a 2D array where each cell represents a node and the value in the cell represents the cost to traverse to that node.
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Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report an online or on-demand assessment, including Codility formats. Reported exercises ranged from arrays and hashing to an airplane-seat arrangement or other scenario-based coding. Some candidates were explicitly instructed to avoid AI assistance and remain in the assessment tab.
A recruiter or HR screen followed the assessment in several accounts. Candidates report a standard brief call; one account says travel requirements were discussed. Use this conversation to clarify logistics and the stated scope of later interviews.
Candidates report a technical screen that could combine behavioral questions with data-structures-and-algorithms coding, code review, or system design. One candidate expected an assessment review but encountered behavioral and design discussion instead, so prepare for a broader conversation than the label may suggest.
Candidates report a half-day or roughly four- to five-hour final loop, often with five technical or mixed sessions. Live coding may use a personal, screen-shared IDE and require independent problem solving; reported coding prompts included a square-root method and an ambiguous train-placement scenario.
Candidates report system-design discussions covering requirements, APIs, architecture, scalability, and security, plus class-based implementation that had to run. Behavioral questions may be mixed into sessions and ask about complex problems, project challenges, collaboration, and seeking senior guidance.
