BNSF Railway Software Engineer candidates report an online coding assessment, recruiter and technical screens, and a long multi-round loop with rail-themed coding, system design, and behavioral questions.
$119K
Avg. Base Comp
$127K
Avg. Total Comp
Not reported
Typical Rounds
1-2 months
Process Length
Candidates describe the BNSF Railway Software Engineer process as long and more varied than a typical coding screen. Most reports start with a timed or self-directed online assessment, such as Codility, where AI use is prohibited. One candidate describes tightly monitored conditions and says tab changes or signs of AI use could mean immediate rejection.
The technical questions often use railway or logistics framing. One candidate was asked to design an algorithm for placing trains on a track under constraints. They had to clarify scope and discuss time and memory complexity. Two others mention an airplane seat arrangement problem, and another reports a locomotive fuel optimization service as a system design prompt. A different candidate was asked for a square-root method and then a class-based implementation they had to run in VS Code. Practice turning under-specified scenarios into scoped, maintainable code and talk through your assumptions, because interviewers in several reports offered little guidance.
Final loops are reported as lengthy: two candidates describe five rounds, and one describes about four hours. Behavioral questions appeared in the loop for one candidate and in a screen for another, so prepare examples about complex problems, getting stuck, and seeking senior advice. One candidate was asked to present a system they had built and answer questions on scalability and security, even though the round was described as reviewing an unfamiliar system. Candidates in this set report timelines of roughly one to two months. Four of the five software engineer reports ended without an offer, and the fifth was still awaiting a reply. One candidate was told to expect an offer that never arrived, so treat verbal signals as tentative.
Synthesized from 6 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Featured question at Bnsf Railway
Write a query to find the number of unpurchased seats for each flight
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| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Comments Histogram | |
| Random SQL Sample | |
| Flight Records | |
| Prime to N | |
| Upsell Transactions | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Recurring Character | |
| Project Pairs | |
| Address Schema | |
| Retailer Data Warehouse | |
| Permutation Palindrome | |
| Download Facts | |
| Find the First Non-Repeating Character in a String | |
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| Daily Retention Summary | |
| Average Quantity | |
| Completed Shipments | |
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Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report a timed Codility-style assessment, sometimes after a recruiter contact. One describes medium to medium-high data structures problems with AI use prohibited and tab changes risking rejection. Another reports two problems in about 60-70 minutes, and a third describes arrays and hashing at roughly LeetCode medium level.
A recruiter call of about 30 minutes is reported by two candidates, and the position in the sequence varies. One says travel requirements for the role were discussed and described as heavy, so it may be worth asking for specifics early.
Reports differ. One candidate solved a data structures problem in a shared-screen IDE with Copilot disabled and little interviewer help. Another expected a review of their assessment but got behavioral and system design questions. A third did a code-review interview built on a Codility task.
Two candidates describe five rounds, one over about five hours and another as 45-minute sessions with breaks. Another describes about four hours of hour-long interviews. Topics reported include rail-themed algorithms, class-based implementation, API and architecture design, and presenting a system you built.
Behavioral prompts appear in the process, including a complex problem you solved, your hardest project challenge, and seeking senior advice. In this evidence set, most software engineer candidates received no offer, and some report little or no feedback or a long silence afterward.
