Glassdoor is the dominant company-reviews and salary-transparency platform — owned by Recruit Holdings (same parent as Indeed). The interview emphasizes user-generated content moderation, salary aggregation, and the unique two-sided dynamics of employees vs employers.
Process
Recruiter screen → 60-minute coding phone (DSA medium) → onsite virtual: 2 coding, 1 system design, 1 craft deep-dive, 1 behavioral. Cycle: 4–6 weeks.
What they actually ask
- Design a moderation system for company reviews (anonymous + authentic)
- Design salary aggregation with privacy preservation
- Design a recommendation system matching users to companies
- Coding: medium DSA, often with search or text-processing framing
- Behavioral: customer focus, ownership, mature product
Levels and comp (2026)
- SE II: $135K–$170K total
- Senior SE: $200K–$260K
- Staff: $290K–$380K
- Principal: $400K–$520K
Prep priorities
- Be fluent in Java or Scala (the bulk of the codebase)
- Understand content moderation and trust/safety patterns
- Brush up on differential privacy / privacy-preserving aggregation
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Glassdoor remote-friendly?
Distributed-first. Office in San Francisco. Most engineering roles fully remote within US.
How does Glassdoor compare to Levels.fyi or Blind?
Glassdoor is the broadest. Levels.fyi specializes in tech compensation. Blind is anonymous discussion. Glassdoor pays mid-tier; below tech specialty companies.
What is the engineering culture?
Stable, mature, calm pace. Less expansive than peak years; reliable and humane.