ServiceNow | SSE | | [couldn't match salary]

I received a call from ServiceNow HR through LinkedIn. After a phone conversation with HR, the interview process began in mid-June.

Online Test: I received a HackerRank link for an assignment. The time allotted was 90 minutes. It was a dynamic programming problem. I completed the challenge, and 70-80% of the tests passed in my solution. In the same week, I received confirmation to take four in-person rounds at their office. Each round was an elimination round. There was a hiring event happening at their office on a weekend.

In-Person Rounds:

Round 1: The interviewer was friendly. He first inquired about the online assignment, asking about the question and how I solved it. It seemed like he wanted to ensure I had taken the test or at least was familiar with the question. Then he asked one coding question and one design question. 1. Code to generate all combinations of a string. 2. System design for WhatsApp. We had a lengthy discussion about this.

Round 2: 1. Find an element in a sorted rotated array (log N time). 2. A question related to scheduling jobs. It was a greedy problem. 3. He asked some questions from my resume and then asked me to implement LRU (without writing code).

Round 3: This round was another coding round. He asked two questions (LeetCode Medium). I wrote the code.

Round 4: This round was with the Senior Director. We had a discussion about my resume. He then asked me to design Twitter. He seemed pleased and indicated they wanted to hire me. He even asked when I could join.

After completing those four rounds, I thought the process was over. HR informed me that I had done very well and the feedback was positive. They mentioned there might be one more round with the Hiring Manager. Since he was on leave, I needed to come back on a weekday.

Two more rounds were scheduled: one with the Hiring Manager and one with the Director of that group.

Round 5: The Hiring Manager round. He asked two coding questions, one on Breadth-First Search (BFS) and the other from a matrix. I wrote code for both. Then we had a discussion about design.

Round 6: The Director of that group. From the first impression, I wasn't very interested in this round. He asked a dynamic programming problem. Then he stepped away for 20-30 minutes (perhaps he had other work). I wrote the code. He came back and checked, everything was fine. Then there were many behavioral questions, such as why ServiceNow, etc. Finally, one design question. This round lasted almost 90 minutes.

I sensed something was wrong because HR hadn't mentioned this Director round beforehand. It was just added. However, I had done well in all the rounds, so I wasn't overly concerned.

After 2-3 days, I emailed HR regarding the status. I immediately received a call from ServiceNow HR. HR said they couldn't match my salary. At that moment, I wasn't sure what to say. I simply said okay. I'm not sure whether the Director rejected me or if they truly couldn't match my salary.

After the call, I felt really bad. Why did they waste my time? If they couldn't match my salary, why did they call me for an interview?

My suggestion would be, if you are from a top-tier company, think twice before going for a ServiceNow interview. I understand that sometimes we are desperate and don't really think whether it's the right company to interview with.

However, there were some positives. The ServiceNow office is really nice. Except for the Director, all the interviewers, including the Senior Director, were very friendly and polite. The HR people were excellent.