IBM Software Engineer Java Developer interview questions
based on 77 ratings - Updated Jan 29, 2026
Averageinterview difficulty
Mostly positiveinterview experience
How others got an interview
52%
Applied online
Applied online
21%
Recruiter
Recruiter
13%
Campus Recruiting
Campus Recruiting
7%
Employee Referral
Employee Referral
6%
Staffing Agency
Staffing Agency
Interview search
77 interviews
Viewing 26 - 30 of 77 Interviews
IBM interviews FAQs
Software Engineer Java Developer applicants have rated the interview process at IBM with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 100% positive. To compare, the company-average is 68.8% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer Java Developer roles take an average of 14 days to get hired, when considering 1 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at IBM overall takes an average of 25 days.
Common stages of the interview process at IBM as a Software Engineer Java Developer according to 1 Glassdoor interviews include:
Presentation: 33%
Drug test: 33%
Phone interview: 33%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
The interviewer started checking my GitHub repo and asking why I didn't commit anything lately, why I did this many personal projects, did you sell this project to anyone? Asked me to write the logic in a notebook and pen. I wonder why did I open the laptop if he wants me to write in a notebook. And then asked me to show him on screen.
I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at IBM in Aug 2021
Interview
I applied through one of the openings from linkedin.
I gave the hackerrank test around June end. Then got the response after more than a month from a recruiter. She asked me for some details.
It was a one hour long technical round. The interviewer was one of the finest interviewer I have I faced. She was polite and elaborated a few terms I know the meaning of but was not able to get from the abbreviations. She touched a lot of various topics and she was not looking for typical bookish answers. The answers I gave based on my hands on experience were enough for her. In the end she gave a perfect summary of what she felt were my strengths and weaknesses.
In the evening I got a call from the consultant and she wanted to schedule the PDM round in 10 minutes. I was free so I agreed. Although after waiting for 20 minutes after joining the call, she said the panel is busy and would like to reschedule fore the next day.
Next day was saturday and an interview was schedule in the afternoon. It was made clear that he wanted to discuss the salary and input my details to an internal portal. Although he did ask me a couple of technical question, details about my current project and rest of the things were salary negotiation and location etc.
This happened today and I hoping to receive the offer letter in coming days.
Interview questions [3]
Question 1
different types of collections. Difference between set and list. When to use which.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at IBM (Palermo) in Jul 2021
Interview
Primo colloquio telefonico seguito da test di inglese e quiz logico matematici svolti al PC. Successivamente un colloquio tecnico su Java e SQL con alcune domande e test di codice.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Conosci Java? Analizza il codice
Conosci SQL? Analizza il codice
Quali altri linguaggi conosci
Punti di forza e debolezze
Domande di logica e inglese