Few industries offer more benefits, greater perks, higher compensation, and better job security than Big Tech. But landing a job in tech is notoriously difficult. Those lucky enough to secure an interview face complex technical questions, and acceptance rates are lower than those of the most selective Ivy League schools. To see which tech companies are the best and worst to interview for, we analyzed over 100,000 Glassdoor interview reviews.
About this study
To determine the best and worst tech giants to interview for, Resume.io aggregated 100,548 interview reviews across 217 roles at 14 companies from Glassdoor. We ranked major tech companies and roles based on average interview difficulty and overall interview experience.
Key insights
- Google is the hardest tech giant to interview for, with an average difficulty rating of 3.5 out of 5.
- Apple has the best interview environment of any tech company, with candidates rating the experience an industry-leading 4.2 out of 5.
- Amazon has the largest internal disparity in interview difficulty by role of any company, with the Brand Specialist interview measuring a 3.9 out of 5 in difficulty – versus the 1.1 out of 5 rating for Fulfillment Associate.
- Across the industry, technical roles tend to be far more difficult and have a worse interview experience overall than non-technical roles.
Google is officially the hardest Tech Giant to interview for in 2024
Our study shows that Google has the most difficult interview process of any major tech company. On average, reviewers rate interviews with the internet conglomerate 3.5 out of 5 in difficulty, outranking similarly competitive companies like Meta, Netflix and Apple.
While Google’s corporate culture emphasizes creative and outside-the-box thinking, job interview reviews reveal that the days of interviewers asking fun riddles and cutesy brain teasers are long gone. In reviews, interviewees recount being asked to solve complex math and coding questions and being made to execute complex technical tasks within a narrow time frame. Candidates are generally assessed throughout multiple rounds of interviews, often given a mix of hard skills tests and theoretical reasoning challenges — even for non-technical jobs.
One candidate for a project coordinator role noted in their Glassdoor review that they were asked to determine the angle between the hour and the minute hands on a clock when the time is 3:15. They ultimately did not receive a job offer.
Apple offers the best experience for job applicants compared to other Tech Giants
When the gateway to a better life hinges on a 45-minute interview with a complete stranger, tensions can flare and emotions run high. While hiring managers may hold more power than ever before as the tech industry undergoes a period of layoffs and contraction, it is still in their best interest to provide potential employees with as smooth and painless an interview process as possible.
On Glassdoor, applicants rate companies according to their overall job interview experience, considering factors like friendliness, responsiveness, and interviewer feedback. On average, reviewers rate the interview experience at Apple an industry-leading 4.2 out of 5, the most of any major tech company.
In one positive review, an Apple applicant praised the quick turnaround between application and recruiter contact and noted that the initial screening felt more like a conversation than an interrogation. Candidates applying for technical roles noted that the skills assessments were tough but fair and that interviewers were highly engaged and attentive throughout the process.
Production Associate is the easiest role to interview for at Tesla, and Mechanical Design Engineer is the hardest
Competition for different jobs can vary widely within the same company, with candidates for one role reporting vastly different experiences than another. At most Tech Giants, interviews for technical positions like engineer and developer are considered far more strenuous than interviews for less technical roles like recruiter or intern.
At Tesla, candidates rate the difficulty of the mechanical engineer interview process 4.1 out of 5, the most of any role at the automaker and more than twice the 1.8-out-of-5 rating for production associate — one of the largest disparities at any major tech company. While mechanical engineer candidates decried the copious amounts of technical assessments, often with weeks between each interview, production associates — who mostly work in manufacturing roles at Tesla factories — noted that their interviews were often casual and took place in relaxed group settings.
Interns and graduates report having the best experience among those interviewing for Tech Giants
Similarly, candidates going for less technical roles tend to have the best interview experiences overall. At Netflix, for example, candidates rate the coordinator role interview process a company high of 4.0 out of 5, nearly twice the average rating for data scientist positions of 2.1 out of 5 — the largest satisfaction disparity at any large tech company. While data scientist candidates bemoan the long, prying skills assessment sessions, coordinator candidates often cite communication and responsiveness from the Netflix HR team as positives of the hiring process.
While the most unpleasant jobs to interview for in Big Tech tend to be engineering roles requiring long, in-depth math tests and coding sessions, at some companies non-technical positions are considered even more tormenting. At Tesla, candidates interviewing for the recruiter role rate the process a company-low 2.5 out of 5, recounting being asked to complete unpaid tasks just to be subsequently ghosted.
Google and Amazon are reportedly the hardest companies to interview for a Software Engineering role
In the race to take over the world one industry at a time — from consumer electronics to health care to media to AI — Big Tech companies recruit the best engineers to work on the biggest problems on the grandest platforms. Such great heights inspire intense competition, with engineers overcoming coding hurdle after coding hurdle to secure jobs at top firms.
While all Big Tech companies screen their technical applicants with complex, probing code assessments, candidates seeking software engineering positions at Google rate the job interview experience a 3.8 out of 5 in difficulty, the most of any major tech company. Not far behind is Amazon, where software engineering candidates rate the interview difficulty as 3.5 out of 5.
While software engineering candidates are often asked practical, specific programming questions relevant to the position they are interviewing for, at Google, applicants are often asked theoretical questions on discrete math and computer architecture. Interviews are conducted through many rounds over many weeks, often with the most difficult technical assessment saved for last.
Candidates applying for Software Engineering roles at Netflix and Uber rate their interview experience the lowest
Big Tech engineers are hired for highly specific roles requiring highly specific skills, often by fellow engineers with little to no interview training. Interviews can be brutal, with engineers being asked to solve complex problems outside their domains of expertise.
In such high-stakes environments, many companies still manage to conduct friendly, constructive interviews — albeit some better than others. On Glassdoor, reviewers rate the overall software engineer interview experience at Salesforce 4.4 out of 5, the highest satisfaction of any major tech company. Meanwhile, reviewers rate the Netflix software engineer interview 3.1 out of 5, the lowest of any company in Big Tech.
At Salesforce, initial assessments are often conducted remotely through HackerRank. Many candidates report feeling encouraged by their interviewers and feeling that the technical assessments are tough without being strenuous or intimidating.
Breaking into Big Tech
While advanced coding skills once entitled qualified engineers to almost any job they wanted, the proliferation of computer science education and self-taught programmers has created a surplus of tech talent and shifted bargaining power from the workers to the hiring managers. Widespread layoffs and workforce contraction throughout the tech world have only reinforced this transfer in power, creating a high-stress environment where job applicants are often at the mercy of employers.
While Big Tech hiring managers may hold more cards than ever before, job seekers have an ace up their sleeve in workplace review sites like Glassdoor. These sites allow us to ask and answer the question: Who are the best and worst tech giants to interview for in 2024?
Methodology
This study explores the quality of the interview experience and interview difficulty at some of the largest technology companies. We focused on 13 Tech Giants: Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Meta, Microsoft, IBM, Tesla, Oracle, Netflix, Nvidia, Salesforce, Adobe, Intel and Uber.
We analyzed the Glassdoor “interviews” page for each Tech Giant, focusing on 2024 interview reviews from United States applicants.
We recorded:
- The Interview “Difficulty” Ratings = Easy, Average or Difficult
- The Interview “Experience” ratings = Negative, Neutral or Positive
In order to calculate the Tech Giants where U.S. interviewees had the hardest/easiest and best/worst experiences in 2024, we converted the ratings to a scoring system and calculated an average out of 5 for both metrics.
| For Experience | For Difficulty |
| Negative = 1 out of 5 | Negative = 1 out of 5 |
| Neutral = 3 out of 5 | Neutral = 3 out of 5 |
| Positive = 5 out of 5 | Difficult = 5 out of 5 |
We repeated this process for all roles with at least 10 reviews for each Tech Giant to calculate the hardest/easiest and best/worst role to interview for at each company. This includes data across all years and applicants worldwide.
This data analysis was conducted in April 2024.
