For over a century, IBM has been known for its groundbreaking innovation and technology. From AI to blockchain, from punch cards to supercomputers, the company has consistently pushed the boundaries of what’s possible.
Software engineers play a very important role in IBM’s journey towards innovation. Being a software engineer at IBM, you’ll be more than just a coder; you’ll be a collaborator and a problem-solver taking part in projects that have a real-world impact.
If you are a passionate software engineer looking to kickstart your career at IBM, this guide is for you.
In this guide, we’ll navigate you through the hiring process, commonly asked IBM software engineer interview questions, and some valuable tips to help you excel.
The interview process for a software engineer role is thoughtfully structured to test your technical and non-technical abilities. Here’s what the interview process normally looks like:
The process starts by submitting your application on the IBM careers website, or you can also reach out to a recruiter on LinkedIn. The recruiting team will review your qualifications and experience to determine if your background aligns with the requirements of the software engineer role.
If your application stands out, you will be then invited to an initial screening with a recruiter or HR representative. This stage will focus on a detailed discussion of your background, skills, and motivation to apply at IBM. To ace the screening, focus on showcasing your technical skills and experience related to software engineering.
In this round, you’ll tackle live coding challenges, writing code on a whiteboard or any other live platform and demonstrating your problem-solving skills and proficiency in different coding languages. Expect in-depth questions about data structures and algorithms in this round. For senior software engineer roles, you might be asked to design a system or a component to solve a specific problem. You might be asked to complete an English assessment after the coding assessment if your native language is not English.
Once you pass the technical assessment, the next round is a less formal interview delving into your experiences and personality. In this round, you’ll be asked about situations where you tackled challenges, demonstrated initiatives, or adapted to new environments. Be prepared to discuss how you effectively communicate with colleagues, handle conflicts, and collaborate within a team.
The final round can be in-person or virtual, depending upon the arrangements. This is more likely to be held with a senior leader or a member of a leadership team. The conversation in this round dives deeper into your aspirations, career goals, and understanding of IBM’s long-term vision. Expect hypothetical scenarios or open-ended questions that challenge your ability to think strategically.
The IBM software engineer interview assesses your proficiency in the following areas:
Here are some questions commonly asked in a software engineer interview at IBM:
This question is often asked in software engineer interviews at IBM to understand your professional journey, your technical expertise, and how well your skills align with the requirements of the role. It allows the interviewer to assess your self-awareness, communication skills, and the relevance of your experience to the software engineer position.
How to Answer
To answer this, start with a brief overview of your educational and professional background. Keep it focused on the aspects that are directly related to the software engineer role. List the major technologies, programming languages, and tools you are familiar with. Connect your technical skills to the requirements of the position.
Example
“I hold a Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and have three years of experience in software development. In my previous role at XYZ Company, I led the development of a customer-facing web application using technologies such as React for the front end and Node.js for the back end. I am proficient in languages like JavaScript and Python and have hands-on experience with cloud services, particularly AWS. During my tenure, I implemented agile methodologies, ensuring timely project deliveries. I am excited about the prospect of bringing my skills in full-stack development and my expertise in cloud technologies to contribute to innovative projects at IBM.”
IBM values software engineers who can think critically, collaborate, and find efficient solutions to complex challenges. This question allows the interviewer to assess your ability to analyze problems and develop creative solutions, adapt to unforeseen challenges, and your communication skills.
How to Answer
While answering, choose a project where you truly took the initiative and the challenge you faced had technical relevance to the software engineer role at IBM. Use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to organize your response. Briefly describe the analytical approach and how you investigated the problem. Highlight how you collaborated with your team to implement the solution.
Example
“In a project at my previous job, we encountered a significant performance bottleneck while developing a new feature for our application. The page load times were much higher than acceptable. I took the initiative to conduct a thorough performance analysis. I identified specific areas in the codebase that were causing the slowdown. I proactively presented my findings to the team and suggested a plan to optimize the critical sections. We organized a collaborative debugging session, where team members with relevant expertise worked together to refactor the code. As a result of our collective efforts, we successfully reduced the page load times by 30%.”
This question is asked in a software engineer interview at IBM to understand your specific motivations, values, and alignment with the company’s mission and culture. It helps the interviewer assess your understanding of IBM’s role in the tech industry and why you believe it’s a fitting place for your professional growth.
How to Answer
While answering, focus on how your professional goals and values align with IBM’s mission and the kind of work they are involved in. Connect your skills and experiences to the company’s objectives. Mention any specific projects of IBM that attract you. Showcase your eagerness to be a valuable asset to the company.
Example
“I’m eager to join IBM due to its leadership in cutting-edge technologies, particularly in AI with projects like Watson. The company’s commitment to addressing real-world challenges resonates with my passion for leveraging technology for meaningful impact. With a background in similar AI-driven projects, I’m excited to contribute my skills to IBM’s innovative and collaborative culture. I believe my experience aligns seamlessly with IBM’s vision of pushing technological boundaries, and I’m enthusiastic about the opportunity to be part of the team.”
This question is frequently asked in software engineer interviews at IBM to understand your career aspirations and see how well your goals align with the company’s trajectory. It helps the interviewer assess your long-term commitment and ambitions and whether the software engineer position aligns with your career development plans.
How to Answer
To answer this, connect your future goals with the growth and opportunities within IBM. Highlight that you have thought about how your role can evolve within the company. Emphasize a commitment to ongoing learning and professional development. Mention how you aim to develop new skills, linking it to your contribution to IBM’s goals and projects.
Example
“In the next five years, I envision myself at IBM as a senior software engineer, actively contributing to high-impact projects. I am eager to deepen my expertise in artificial intelligence and cloud computing and take on a leadership role in guiding and mentoring junior team members. I am committed to staying at the forefront of technological advancements and acquiring new skills, aligning with IBM’s commitment to innovation. Furthermore, I see myself actively contributing to IBM’s initiatives in cloud computing, leveraging my experience to bring valuable insights to the team. I am excited about the prospect of growing with IBM and being an integral part of the company’s success in shaping the future of technology.”
Problem-solving abilities, resilience, and your capacity to handle complex situations are important to being a software engineer at IBM. This question helps the interviewer understand how you approach challenges and overcome obstacles in the context of software development.
How to Answer
To answer this question, first, choose a problem that is significant, relevant to the software engineering domain, and showcases your ability to solve complex issues. Clearly outline the nature of the challenge. Explain the steps you took to understand and address the problem. Share the outcome of your efforts and the lessons learned.
Example
“In my previous role, our team faced a performance bottleneck in a critical software component, causing unacceptable response times. I led a code analysis, identified inefficiencies tied to a specific algorithm, proposed a refactoring plan, collaborated with the team for implementation, and achieved a significant improvement in system response time. This was a challenging problem, and it taught me the importance of thorough analysis, collaborative problem-solving, and continuous performance monitoring in software development.”
The interviewer aims to assess your proficiency in writing clean and optimized code with this question. For software engineers, understanding efficient anagram solutions is valuable for optimizing IBM’s complex systems and analyzing large text datasets for research and development projects.
How to Answer
To answer this, outline your strategy before diving into code. You might mention that you will compare the character frequencies in both strings. Then mention the function and describe using data structures like dictionaries to store character frequencies. Depending on time constraints, you may discuss any potential optimizations and develop test cases.
Example
“I would approach this problem by first removing spaces and converting both input strings to lowercase, ensuring a case-insensitive comparison. Then, I’d compare the lengths of the two strings. If they differ, they can’t be anagrams, and I’d return False. Next, I would create two dictionaries to store the character frequencies for each string. I’d iterate through each character in both strings and update the corresponding counts in their respective dictionaries. Finally, I’d compare the two dictionaries. If they match, the strings are anagrams, and I’d return True; otherwise, I’d return False. For example, if I have the strings ‘listen’ and ‘silent,’ the function would return True since both strings have the same character frequencies, making them anagrams.”
Linked lists are fundamental building blocks in various IBM systems, from database management to network optimization. This question is asked to software engineer candidates to assess their proficiency in both data structures and object-oriented programming and their understanding of linked lists.
How to Answer
Design classes (Node and LinkedList) with encapsulation, then implement a reverse method to update pointers and connections. Pay attention to edge cases (empty list, single node) and develop test cases for diverse scenarios to validate the correctness of the linked list reversal algorithm.
Example
“I would create a Node
class to represent elements in the linked list, each containing data and a reference to the next node. Using a LinkedList
class, I’d initialize it with a head pointing to the first node. To reverse the list, I’d iterate through the nodes, updating pointers to reverse connections. I’d create a reverse
method within the LinkedList
class using three pointers: current
, prev
, and next_node
. After the reversal, I’d update the head
of the linked list to point to the new first node. For testing, I’d display the original and reversed linked lists to ensure the correct reversal process.”
IBM, being a pioneer in diverse technological fields, relies heavily on its software engineers to build and maintain complex systems. The interviewer can ask this question to evaluate your coding skills in terms of syntax, structure, and readability.
How to Answer
First, check if one string can be obtained by shifting another string. Think about how string shifting works. Shifting involves moving characters from one end to the other, either left or right. Develop an algorithm to check if one string can be obtained by shifting another. Write a function that takes two strings as input and returns a boolean indicating whether one string can be obtained by shifting the other.
Example
“I would design a function called can_shift
to determine if one string can be shifted to obtain another. My approach would involve comparing the lengths of both strings and checking if they are equal. If not, they cannot be shifted to match each other. Next, I would concatenate the first string with itself to create a string that encompasses all possible shifts. Then, I’d check if the second string is a substring of this concatenated string. If it is, then the second string can be obtained by shifting the first.”
IBM prioritizes software performance and resource utilization. Software engineers often deal with large-scale systems that demand efficient memory usage. The interviewer may ask this question aiming to test your memory management expertise, algorithm design, JRE knowledge, performance optimization, and communication skills.
How to Answer
While answering, begin by explaining the basics of Java memory management. Briefly mention common garbage collection algorithms in Java. Discuss the factors to consider in designing a garbage collector. Address trade-offs associated with garbage collection, including latency issues and impact on application performance.
Example
“In designing a garbage collector for Java, I would consider the generational garbage collection model, which divides the heap into Young and Old generations. The Young generation collects short-lived objects, minimizing the impact on the more stable Old generation. The trade-offs involve choosing between pause times and overall throughput. To optimize performance, I might explore different garbage collection algorithms, like the G1 collector, balancing short pause times with efficient memory reclamation. However, this involves trade-offs as the G1 collector might affect throughput compared to parallel or concurrent collectors.”
IBM deals with massive datasets, hence understanding different methods for scaling numerical data is important for software engineers. This question goes beyond just writing a function. The interviewer aims to assess your ability to approach the problem systematically, explore different solutions, and tackle complex challenges.
How to Answer
Create a function that takes a list of product reviews as input, normalizes the numerical ratings, and identifies the most positive and negative reviews. Explain your approach to normalizing ratings. Describe how you would determine the most positive and negative reviews after normalization.
Example
“I would design a function named normalize_ratings_and_highlight_reviews
that takes a list of product reviews with numerical ratings and text reviews. First, I’d normalize the numerical ratings by mapping the original scale (1-5 stars) to a new scale between 0 and 1. This could be achieved by dividing each rating by the maximum possible rating. Next, I’d identify the most positive and negative reviews based on these normalized ratings. This might involve sorting the reviews by their normalized ratings and selecting the top and bottom ones. This function would efficiently normalize ratings and highlight the most positive and negative reviews from the input list.”
IBM emphasizes constantly improving its systems. Answering this question showcases your commitment to finding and resolving issues, contributing to continuous improvement being a software engineer. The interviewer wants to see your ability to analyze logs, interpret error messages, and identify root causes efficiently.
How to Answer
To answer this, discuss that familiarity with the system’s architecture, components, and dependencies is important. Discuss your approach to test planning. Mention the role of automation in testing. Discuss the importance of robust error logging and tracking mechanisms. Discuss how you would work closely with development teams.
Example
“In approaching the testing and debugging of a complex system like IBM’s Watson, my first step would be to immerse myself in understanding the system’s architecture, components, and functionality. I’d then develop a comprehensive testing plan covering functional, performance, and security aspects. Automation would play a key role, particularly for repetitive tasks and regression testing. I would leverage tools like Selenium or JUnit to streamline the testing process. Additionally, establishing robust error logging and tracking mechanisms would be crucial for identifying and addressing issues. Collaboration with development teams is paramount. Regular communication, sharing insights from testing, and actively participating in debugging efforts would ensure a seamless integration of testing into the development lifecycle.”
This seemingly simple question delves into various essential skills for software engineers working on social network analysis at IBM. The interviewer may ask this question to test your understanding of graph algorithms, data structures, heuristics, potential ML integration, and strong communication skills.
How to Answer
First, understand that in the social network graph, nodes could represent users, and edges could represent relationships. Choose an appropriate graph algorithm for finding the shortest path. Integrate the influence of mutual friends and shared interests into your algorithm.
Example
“To find the shortest, most likely path between two users, I would leverage a graph algorithm like Dijkstra’s or A* to efficiently navigate the network. Considering mutual friends and shared interests, I would assign weights to edges based on the strength of connections. For example, if two users have several mutual friends or share multiple interests, the corresponding edge weight would be lower, indicating a stronger connection. This function would take user profiles, the social graph, and potentially other parameters as inputs, then return the shortest, most likely path between the two users, factoring in mutual friends and shared interests.”
Software engineers at IBM frequently work with complex integrations between diverse systems. Knowing about WebSphere Portal’s integration capabilities showcases your understanding of this crucial aspect.
How to Answer
Start by expressing your understanding of WebSphere Portal. Emphasize its role in building and managing enterprise portals. Discuss the key features of WebSphere Portal. Provide examples of scenarios where WebSphere Portal is beneficial.
Example
“WebSphere Portal serves as a comprehensive web portal technology developed by IBM. Its purpose is to empower organizations to build and manage enterprise portals, offering a unified and personalized interface for users. Key features include seamless content integration, collaboration tools, and robust personalization capabilities. For instance, organizations can leverage WebSphere Portal to create intranet portals for enhanced employee collaboration, customer-facing portals for personalized user experiences, and partner portals for secure information sharing.”
IBM heavily relies on its software engineers to extract meaningful insights from vast datasets for diverse applications. The interviewer aims to test your SQL expertise, data manipulation skills, and algorithm design abilities by asking this question.
How to Answer
Begin by understanding the structure of the sales data and product information tables. Identify key relationships. Determine the key metrics to calculate. Write SQL queries that aggregate the data based on the identified metrics and breakdowns. Utilize JOIN operations, GROUP BY clauses, and aggregation functions to calculate the required values.
Example
“To calculate the required metrics, I would write SQL queries to join the sales data and product information tables based on the product ID. For total revenue, I’d sum up the product of quantity and unit price, grouping the results by region, product category, and time period. Similarly, for average order value, I’d calculate the average quantity times unit price, again grouping by region, product category, and time period. For identifying top-selling products, I’d use the SUM function to aggregate the quantity sold, grouping by region, product category, time period, and product name. I’d then order the results by the total quantity sold in descending order to highlight the top-selling products.”
IBM values efficient solutions. Software engineers at IBM should be proficient in implementing the chosen algorithm in the specific programming language. This question allows the interviewer to assess your data structure understanding, algorithm design abilities, coding proficiency, and attention to detail.
How to Answer
While answering, start by describing your approach, which typically involves using two pointers. Mention how you would handle cases where the linked list has an even number of elements. Decide whether you want the mid or mid-1 element and adjust your approach accordingly.
Example
“I would employ a two-pointer approach to find the middle or mid-1 element of a linked list. I’d initialize two pointers, one advancing by one node at a time (slow pointer) and the other by two nodes at a time (fast pointer). When the fast pointer reaches the end of the list, the slow pointer will be positioned at the middle or mid-1 element, depending on whether the list has an odd or even number of elements.”
Node findMiddle(Node head) {
Node slow = head;
Node fast = head;
while (fast != null && fast.next != null) {
slow = slow.next;
fast = fast.next.next;
}
return slow;
}
IBM deals with massive amounts of real-time data. Demonstrating proficiency in efficiently processing and analyzing a continuous stream of social media posts showcases software engineers’ ability to handle such data volume in real-time. The interviewer tests your proficiency in data processing, efficient algorithm design and data insights generation with this question.
How to Answer
While answering, consider the need to identify the most frequently used words and phrases. Outline how you would design a data pipeline to handle the real-time stream. Discuss how you would apply techniques to extract meaningful words and phrases from the text data. Explain your choice of streaming technologies for real-time processing.
Example
“I would approach this problem by designing a data pipeline that can handle real-time streams of social media posts. The pipeline would include a data ingestion component to collect and stream posts, a processing component for natural language processing, and an analysis component to identify the most frequently used words and phrases. For natural language processing, I would employ techniques like tokenization to break down the text into individual words, and stemming to reduce words to their root form. I might also consider filtering out common stop words to focus on the most meaningful terms. To implement real-time processing, I would leverage a streaming technology like Apache Kafka or IBM Streams.”
IBM heavily emphasizes the integration of AI and machine learning into its software solutions. This question assesses a candidate’s ability to bridge the gap between model development and practical application within a web framework, an important skill for software engineers working on AI-powered products.
How to Answer
To answer this question, consider the need for user input, model prediction, and real-time updates. Decide on a web development framework to build the application. Design API endpoints that allow users to submit input data and receive predictions. Define routes for user input, model prediction, and real-time response. Serialize the model into a format for deployment.
Example
“To integrate a trained linear regression model into a web application, I’d choose Flask for its simplicity. Creating a dedicated API endpoint like /predict
would handle user input and trigger real-time predictions. After training, I’d serialize the model using joblib or pickle. Deployment on platforms like Heroku or IBM Cloud would ensure accessibility. The application logic would process user input, convert it for model use, and provide instant predictions. Robust error handling and thorough testing would precede deployment, ensuring a smooth user experience for inputting data and receiving real-time predictions.”
IBM operates in diverse industries with significant financial implications. This question assesses your understanding of probability distributions, truncation concepts, and their application in financial modeling, important for software engineers involved in such domains.
How to Answer
To answer this, decide on a programming language for implementation. Utilize a lognormal distribution to simulate profit margins. Implement truncation logic to ensure that simulated profit margins do not exceed the specified maximum margin.
Example
“I would start by defining a function in Python that uses the numpy
library for efficient numerical operations. The function would take parameters for mean, standard deviation ( std_dev
), and the maximum margin ( max_margin
). To simulate profit margins, I would use the numpy.random.lognormal
function, specifying the mean and standard deviation. To handle truncation at the maximum margin, I would apply a simple conditional check to ensure that generated values do not exceed max_margin
. This function would generate synthetic profit margins based on a lognormal distribution with mean, standard deviation, and truncation at the maximum margin.”
This question can be asked to assess a candidate’s ability to solve a data-driven problem, choose appropriate algorithms and data structures, write efficient and scalable code, and communicate their approach effectively. These skills are essential for software engineers working on data-driven solutions across various domains at IBM.
How to Answer
To answer this, plan the algorithm for calculating the recency-weighted average. Consider factors such as the weighting scheme, the method of incorporating recency, and how to handle edge cases. Write a function that takes a product’s historical stock levels as input and returns the recency-weighted average. Utilize any necessary data structures or libraries to facilitate the computation.
Example
“I would create a Python function called calculate_weighted_average
that takes a list of historical stock levels for a product as input. The function would incorporate a recency-weighted averaging algorithm, giving more weight to recent stock levels. The calculate_weighted_average
function would use the numpy library to efficiently calculate a recency-weighted average. The weights would be assigned based on the recency of each stock level, and the function would return the computed weighted average.”
This question effectively evaluates your ability to design algorithms for computationally intensive tasks, handle numerical operations on strings, manage resources efficiently, and write clear, well-structured code. These skills are important for software engineers working on projects that involve large-scale computations at IBM.
How to Answer
To answer this, plan an algorithm that efficiently calculates the factorial of a large integer. Then write a function that takes a string representing a large integer as input and returns the factorial as a string.
Example
“I would design a Python function called string_factorial
to calculate the factorial of a large integer given as a string. To handle potential growth efficiently, I would use the math
library, specifically the factorial
function, which is optimized for performance. This approach would efficiently handle the potential growth of the result string without explicitly implementing the factorial calculation algorithm, which can be resource-intensive for large inputs.”
Additional Context: For the two strings, our correspondence must be between characters in the same position/index.
This question is likely asked in an IBM Software Engineer interview to evaluate problem-solving skills, algorithmic thinking, and knowledge of data structures. It also tests attention to detail, as you must handle edge cases like strings of different lengths or repeated characters.
How to Answer
The easiest way to solve this problem is to check conditions that make a bijection between string characters impossible. We return ‘False’ if our strings fit a condition, and ‘True’ otherwise.
Example
“To solve the problem of determining if there’s a one-to-one correspondence between characters of two strings, I first check if the strings are the same length; if not, I return ‘False’. Then, I create a dictionary to map characters from the first string to the second. As I loop through the strings, I check if each character mapping is consistent. If I find any inconsistency, I return ‘False’. If all checks pass, I return ‘True’, indicating a valid one-to-one correspondence.”
This question would be asked in an IBM software engineer interview to assess the candidate’s proficiency in SQL and their ability to solve complex data retrieval problems.
How to Answer
The problem requires the candidate to write a query that accurately counts users who were active on each of the first five days of January 2020, demonstrating their ability to work with temporal data and their understanding of business logic related to user activity tracking.
Example
“First, I created a CTE to select distinct user IDs and transaction dates. Then, I filtered for users who made transactions on all five days from January 1 to January 5, 2020, using GROUP BY and HAVING COUNT() = 5. Finally, I counted these users to find how many made at least one transaction each day in that period.”*
Preparing for a software engineer interview at a tech giant like IBM can be both daunting and exciting. To help you ace your interview at IBM, here are some useful tips to keep in mind to help you land you dream software engineer job.
Research the common technologies and tools used at IBM, such as Watson, IBM Cloud and data analytics solutions. Understand the specific requirements for the software engineer role from the job description. Show genuine interest in IBM’s mission and work.
Once you have understood the role and IBM’s technologies, check out our Learning Path to start preparing for your interview and enhance your technical skills in Python, SQL and much more.
Revise the core data structures and algorithms. Focus on concepts like graphs, trees, sorting algorithms, dynamic programming, and algorithm analysis. Be proficient in the languages commonly used at IBM, such as Python, Java, and C++, and popular frameworks like Spring, Django, and TensorFlow.
Level up your coding by addressing your strengths and weaknesses by practicing our Interview Questions from top tech companies.
Expect behavioral questions that test your teamwork, decision-making and problem-solving approach. Don’t forget to use the STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) to answer such questions.
Try Interview Query’s Interview Experience feature to learn from others’ experience and gain valuable insights.
Practice time management during coding interviews. Allocate time to understand the problem, plan your solution, and implement it.
By practicing with Interview Query’s Takehomes, you can learn to efficiently breakdown longer problems and allocate time wisely.
Whether with a friend or online, practicing in a simulated environment lets you hone your problem-solving skills and refine your communication.
Consider checking out Mock Interviews at Interview Query, where you can practice and maximize your preparation.
Average Base Salary
Average Total Compensation
The average base salary for a Software Engineer at IBM is $112,516. Adjusting the average for more recent salary data points, the average recency weighted base salary is $116,437.
For more insights into the salary range of Software Engineers at various companies, check out our comprehensive Software Engineer Salary Guide.
Interview Query does not have a section on IBM’s Software Engineer interview experience but you can read about the experiences for other roles like Machine Learning, Data Analyst, and Data Scientist positions, and more on the interview experiences section.
Interview Query doesn’t directly list job postings for the Software Engineer role at IBM. For job postings, you might refer to their official career page or job boards that specifically list Software Engineer positions.
You can also consider finding new opportunities on Interview Query’s jobs board.
Landing your dream Software Engineer job at IBM can be challenging but it’s certainly achievable with dedication and thorough preparation. By focusing on the insights provided above, you can definitely ace your interview with confidence.
If you need more insights about the company, consider checking out our main company interview guide. There, we have provided interview questions you may encounter, and we have also covered interview guides for other IBM positions, such as Data Engineer, Business Analyst, Data Analyst, and Machine Learning.
Remember, Interview Query is always here to support you at every step of the interview preparation. Believe in yourself, utilize these resources, and trust the process. We’re rooting for you every step of the way!