Scotiabank's Software Engineer process usually starts with a recruiter screen covering your background, previous responsibilities, and why you want to join Scotiabank. One candidate instead began with a one-way video interview and later had a virtual coffee chat with a recruiter.
A timed online coding assessment is common, often on Codility. One candidate described a 90-minute proctored assessment with camera and screen sharing and three working days to complete it. An intern applicant took a three-question Plum assessment with two medium problems and one easy, and recalled Number of Islands from the process.
Technical rounds lean on fundamentals and practical work rather than algorithm grinding. Expect OOP questions, such as explaining abstraction with concrete examples in Java, or Python-specific features and why you would pick Python over Java. One candidate was also asked about Selenium testing.
A frontend-leaning developer round covered several topics:
- Context API versus Redux;
- controlled versus uncontrolled components;
- building a small Todo app and a React table;
- writing POST and GET endpoints in Node.js.
That candidate ran short on time, so read every prompt fully before you start.
System design carries real weight in later rounds. One candidate was asked to:
- design a payment system;
- generate identifiers in the format COUNTRYCODE-PROVIDER-SEQUENCENUMBER;
- store uploaded files in a database and plan a later migration to a cloud vendor;
- answer security questions about likely attacks.
Another was asked how load balancers work. Prepare one project you can walk through end to end, including the trade-offs behind your decisions.
Behavioral questions run throughout, covering problem-solving examples, collaboration, continuous learning, career direction, and start date. Communication after the final round varied in these reports, from a decision the next day, to feedback about a week later, to no response at all.
Synthesized from 19 candidate reports by our editorial team.
