Target software engineer candidates describe a recruiter screen or online assessment, then practical coding, Java and Spring Boot, SQL and design rounds, and a hiring-manager conversation with behavioral questions.
$113K
Avg. Base Comp
$140K
Avg. Total Comp
Not reported
Typical Rounds
Not reported
Process Length
Target software engineer candidates describe a loop that is more applied than puzzle-driven, though the format differs from one report to the next. Most start with a recruiter conversation or an online assessment: one report is a 60-minute test at roughly LeetCode-medium level, another mixes technical multiple-choice questions with three coding problems, and a third is a Spring Boot coding assignment.
The technical rounds lean toward practical backend work. Reported tasks include coding a shopping cart class, fixing a bug in existing code and writing test cases during a pair-programming session, a topological sorting question, explaining concurrency in Java, and SQL and OOP fundamentals. One candidate faced a 90-minute low-level design round with in-depth Kafka questions. That was followed by a Twitter-style high-level design that probed trade-offs and touched on e-commerce scenarios such as warehouse management.
Behavioral questions appear in most reported loops. Candidates were asked why they want Target, to walk through projects in depth, and to explain the choices they made. A hiring-manager conversation shows up in several reports, and one candidate describes a closing call about availability.
Outcomes vary: some candidates received offers and others were rejected, one without feedback. Practice explaining your reasoning aloud, and prepare one project you can defend in detail, including why you built it the way you did. It also helps to rehearse debugging unfamiliar code while writing tests under time pressure.
Synthesized from 29 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Target process.
I started with a video interview where I recorded answers to about six questions. The company sent me a link and I could retake each response up to three times, which was helpful for getting comfortable with my answers. The whole process felt straightforward — no live interviewer, just me responding to prompts on camera. After submitting those videos, I was invited to an in-person interview at the Target office. The technical screening touched on resume highlights, object-oriented programming concepts, SQL queries, and some data structures and algorithms problems. Nothing was particularly deep, but they wanted to see that I could think through problems clearly. The in-person round included a behavioral component focused on why I wanted the role and how my skills aligned with what they were looking for. The interviewers asked me to reflect on my experiences and explain what I could contribute to the team. Overall, the whole process moved quickly — from initial application to final decision took about five days. It wasn't the most intense interview I've done, but it was thorough enough to get a sense of whether there was a fit on both sides.
Prep tip from this candidate
Focus your prep on SQL query writing and object-oriented design principles, as those came up in the technical screening. For the in-person round, prepare concrete examples from your past work that demonstrate impact and think carefully about articulating why this specific role matters to you — the behavioral questions centered heavily on motivation and alignment.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Target
Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Monthly Customer Report | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Over-Budget Projects | |
| Average Order Value | |
| Normalize Grades | |
| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| Black Friday Shopping Spree | |
| Common Prefix | |
| Seller Type Modeling | |
| Sales Leaderboard | |
| Client Solution Pushback | |
| Your Strengths and Weaknesses | |
| Slow OLAP Aggregations | |
| Random SQL Sample | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Retailer Data Warehouse | |
| Total Spent on Products | |
| Total Transactions | |
| Valid Anagram | |
| Cumulative Sales Since Last Restocking | |
| Monthly Product Sales | |
| Max Quantity | |
| ATM Robbery | |
| String Palindromes | |
| Find Mismatched Words | |
| Testing Constraints | |
| Azure Kubernetes Infrastructure | |
| Friend Requests Down | |
| Why Do You Want to Work With Us |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report opening with a recruiter call (in one case only about five minutes) or an online assessment. Examples include a 60-minute test at roughly LeetCode-medium level, technical multiple-choice questions with three coding problems, and a Spring Boot coding assignment. One candidate had a coding challenge with a set deadline after the recruiter call.
Reported technical rounds include coding a shopping cart class, longest-substring and array-rotation problems, and SQL, DBMS and OOP fundamentals. One candidate had a pair-programming session over Zoom. The task was to fix a bug in existing code and write tests in about 1.5 hours, and the session also included a topological sorting question.
Some candidates report design discussion. One described a 90-minute low-level design and domain round with in-depth Kafka questions, then a 60-minute Twitter-style high-level design touching e-commerce scenarios such as warehouse management. Another was asked how they would architect an application and sketch pseudo code. Not every candidate reports a design round.
Candidates describe hiring-manager conversations covering past projects, concurrency in Java and behavioral questions. One was asked why they wanted to join Target. Some report a closing conversation about salary expectations or availability.
