What to expect in a New Relic software engineer interview, based on candidate reports: coding, system design, project deep-dives, and role-specific rounds, with preparation advice for each.
$135K
Avg. Base Comp
$160K
Avg. Total Comp
3-5 rounds
Typical Rounds
Not reported
Process Length
Candidates describe a New Relic software engineer interview that mixes coding with design and detailed questions about past work. Nearly every report mentions a coding or data-structures round. The problems range from easy string tasks, such as reversing words in a string, to dynamic programming and tree mirroring. One principal-level candidate got a harder recursive B-tree traversal.
The pattern that recurs most is resume and project scrutiny. Several candidates describe interviewers probing their previous work, and one was asked to present an architecture they had designed in a previous role and defend the decisions. Prepare to explain what you personally built and why you made each decision.
System design appears in several reports, and the prompts differ: a scheduler, a URL shortener (low-level and high-level), a top-10 movie recommender, and scalability and availability questions. One candidate also reports a low-level design task about averaging API response time over a time window.
Some rounds depend on the team. One candidate faced a Java live-coding session on Coderpad with bug-fixing and refactoring, plus a Kafka theory round built on hypothetical scenarios. A principal-level candidate had a React, JavaScript, HTML and CSS assessment. Only one report describes an offer. Several describe scheduling problems, unclear interviewers, or silence after a stage, so confirm each step and timeline with your recruiter.
Synthesized from 8 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the New relic process.
My interview at New Relic started with a recruiter phone screen to go over background and the role itself. That felt pretty standard — they asked about my experience and what drew me to the company. Then I moved into a technical round with engineers on the team. I got a hash map problem where I had to count word frequencies in a text file. It wasn't super hard conceptually, but there was definitely a focus on getting the implementation clean and thinking through edge cases like punctuation and case sensitivity. I had enough time to code it out and walk through my logic, which felt good.
What threw me a bit was the behavioral round with the director that came after. I expected it to be soft skills focused — handling conflict, working in teams, that kind of thing — but they actually drilled deep into my resume. They wanted specifics on coursework I'd taken, projects I'd listed, and how they connected to the role. It felt less like a culture fit conversation and more like they were stress-testing whether I actually knew what I claimed to know. The whole process moved quickly, though. From first recruiter contact to final round was pretty fast, and everyone seemed organized and responsive. Overall it was well structured, though the behavioral round definitely caught me off guard by being more technical than I expected going in.
Prep tip from this candidate
Expect the behavioral round to include technical depth — be ready to defend specifics on your resume and coursework with concrete details. The hash map problem was straightforward but polished, so drill frequency-counting patterns and handle edge cases like punctuation and case carefully.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at New relic
Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Top Three Salaries | |
| Merge Sorted Lists | |
| Closest SAT Scores | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Random SQL Sample | |
| Minimum Change | |
| Raining in Seattle | |
| String Shift | |
| Rolling Bank Transactions | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Comments Histogram | |
| Find the First Non-Repeating Character in a String | |
| Daily Retention Summary | |
| Flight Records | |
| Prime to N | |
| The Brackets Problem | |
| Upsell Transactions | |
| Find the Missing Number | |
| Scrambled Tickets | |
| P-value to a Layman | |
| Download Facts | |
| Rectangle Overlap | |
| First Touch Attribution | |
| Job Recommendation | |
| Google Maps Improvement | |
| Bagging vs Boosting |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report starting with a recruiter or HR conversation about background, the role, and sometimes salary expectations. One candidate describes a follow-up background discussion with the engineering manager. Expect to summarize your work clearly.
One candidate reports a one-hour HackerRank assessment with multiple-choice questions, SQL, and two data-structure problems. A principal-level candidate reports a React, JavaScript, HTML and CSS assessment. This stage may not apply to every team, so ask the recruiter what to expect.
Candidates report problems such as reversing words in a string, dynamic programming, mirroring a tree, and questions on Java basics, collections and OOP. A Java-focused candidate did a one-hour live Coderpad session with bug-fixing and refactoring. A principal-level candidate faced a harder recursive traversal task. Clean code, edge cases, and follow-up questions matter.
Several candidates report design prompts: a scheduler, a URL shortener, a top-10 movie recommender, and an API response-time calculation. Candidates describe interviewers asking about architecture choices, scalability, availability, and edge cases. Be ready to justify decisions rather than only sketch diagrams.
Multiple candidates report detailed questions about resume projects and architecture they designed. One candidate calls the final behavioral conversation relaxed. Prepare concrete stories with technical detail, since this round may be more technical than its name suggests.
