Walmart Software Engineer candidates report a mix of Karat or online coding, Java and Spring Boot questions, project deep dives, system design and a manager conversation. Here is how to prepare for each stage.
$157K
Avg. Base Comp
$220K
Avg. Total Comp
2-5 rounds
Typical Rounds
Not reported
Process Length
Candidates describe Walmart's Software Engineer interviews as a blend of data structures, Java-centered technical questions and detailed conversations about past work. Some report an early Karat interview. One candidate found the Karat prompt vague and spent the first minutes restating requirements in pseudocode before coding. Reported problems include:
Narrating your approach matters as much as the answer.
Java comes up repeatedly. Candidates mention Core Java and Spring Boot rounds, and one interviewer spent a long time on how a HashMap works under the hood. Know the backend tooling and languages on your resume well enough to explain them.
The most recent report describes five steps: a DSA round, a Java and Spring Boot round with some low-level design, a project deep dive, a brief HR conversation and a hiring manager meeting. In the project round, interviewers pressed on non-functional requirements. Prometheus and Grafana came up when discussing how to keep a service observable in production. Be ready to defend design decisions and explain how you would monitor a service after it ships.
Process shape varies. One candidate described a three-round loop that was mostly conversational, with questions about a difficult work situation and their React Native experience. Another described informal meetings with no live coding. Prepare for coding, but do not assume every loop is algorithm-heavy. Several reports also include a system design round, so practice explaining trade-offs in a design you would build.
Synthesized from 50 candidate reports by our editorial team.
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Real interview reports from people who went through the Walmart process.
The part I didn't expect was how much of the process came down to my own projects. There were five steps. The first was a DSA round. The second was a technical round on Java and Spring Boot, with some low-level design basics mixed in. The third round was where I got grilled. The interviewers went deep into the projects on my resume and pushed on non-functional requirements, and Prometheus and Grafana came up when we talked about keeping a service observable in production. The fourth was an HR interview, which felt like a formality with no real pressure. The last step was a meeting with the hiring manager, who explained the product and what the role would own day to day, and then confirmed the offer. I accepted. If I had to point to what mattered most, it was the project discussion. Know your projects well enough to defend every design decision, and be ready to talk about how you would monitor and run them after they ship.
Prep tip from this candidate
Be ready to defend your projects in depth and speak to non-functional requirements like observability, since Prometheus and Grafana came up in the project round. The HR round was minimal, so put your preparation into the technical and project discussions.
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Sourced from candidate reports and verified by our team.
Topics based on recent interview experiences.
Featured question at Walmart
Select the 2nd highest salary in the engineering department
| Question | |
|---|---|
| Empty Neighborhoods | |
| Subscription Overlap | |
| Customer Orders | |
| Top 3 Users | |
| Over 100 Dollars | |
| Scrambled Tickets | |
| Bagging vs Boosting | |
| Last Transaction | |
| P-value to a Layman | |
| Triplet Counting | |
| Groups of Anagrams | |
| Longest Increasing Subsequence | |
| Valid Anagram | |
| Cumulative Sales Since Last Restocking | |
| Hurdles In Data Projects | |
| Order Addresses | |
| Highest Average | |
| Black Friday Shopping Spree | |
| Rider Discount | |
| Seasonal Product Performance Analysis | |
| Type I and II Errors | |
| Check Matching Parentheses | |
| Moving Window | |
| Employee Benefits Outreach | |
| Deciding Between Solutions | |
| Scalable Data Pipelines | |
| Testing Constraints | |
| Marketing Workflow Optimization | |
| Client Solution Pushback |
Synthesized from candidate reports. Individual experiences may vary.
Candidates report different entry points. Some describe an HR or recruiter phone screen covering background and fit. Others report a Karat technical interview with a coding problem, where restating vague requirements before coding helped. Expect this stage to vary by team.
Candidates report problems such as a custom HashMap with collision handling, an anagram check, a BST built from scratch or a binary search implementation. Interviewers typically want you to restate requirements, explain your approach and show you understand how structures work under the hood. Practice talking through solutions under time pressure.
Several candidates report stack-specific questions on Core Java and Spring Boot, and one also saw low-level design basics. Another was asked broadly which backend languages they knew. Be ready to explain the backend tools you have used, since the depth reported varies from broad language questions to framework specifics.
The most recent candidate describes a round that went deep into resume projects, including non-functional requirements and observability with Prometheus and Grafana. Other candidates report separate system design interviews. Prepare to justify design decisions and explain how you would run a service in production.
The most recent candidate describes the HR round as a low-pressure formality. A hiring manager meeting followed, which explained the product and role scope before confirming the offer. Other candidates report behavioral questions about difficult situations, conflict, teamwork and previous projects. Prepare concrete examples and questions about the team.
