Novartis Software Engineer interviews differ noticeably depending on the specific track - full-time, contract, or internship (Praktikum) - but the firsthand reports share a common shape: an early screening conversation, a deeper hiring-manager discussion, and then a technical or team-focused round that varies sharply in format.
The process often opens with a brief recruiter or HR conversation. One candidate described this as short as fifteen minutes and focused mainly on background and motivation; another said the HR stage was mostly an overview of what to expect rather than an evaluation. A contract-track candidate went through a recruiting agency instead, which they described as upfront and transparent about the role from the start.
From there, candidates typically meet a hiring manager for a longer, more substantive conversation. One described a roughly 35-minute discussion that pushed for concrete examples of conflict and difficult team dynamics rather than technical depth. A candidate interviewing for the Praktikum (internship) track instead had a casual conversation about role expectations and day-to-day work, followed by a presentation component and meetings with people across levels - including senior leadership - as part of what they described as a full-day process.
Technical evaluation is where accounts diverge the most. One candidate reported five separate technical interviews covering system design and problem-solving across the stack. Another said the technical portion amounted to basic verbal questions with no coding involved at all. A third completed a take-home coding challenge followed by a phone interview centered on reading and debugging a buggy program, OOP principles, and command-line basics.
Post-interview communication is the most consistent complaint. Candidates who did not receive offers described long silences after their final round - in one case, a new HR contact eventually reached out with no real feedback, and in another, a follow-up email went entirely unanswered. One candidate who accepted an offer described the process as taking roughly a couple of weeks from start to finish, with an additional wait after that before a final decision. Given how much the format and timeline vary by track, it's worth treating any single account here as one data point rather than a fixed script.
Synthesized from 8 candidate reports by our editorial team.
