Interview Process Overview
LinkedIn’s interview process emphasizes technical excellence, relationship building, and data-driven decision making. As part of Microsoft, LinkedIn maintains its distinct culture focused on connecting professionals and creating economic opportunity.
What to Expect
Recruiter Screen: Discussion of your professional background, interest in LinkedIn’s mission, and role requirements.
Technical Phone Screen (1 round): 1-hour coding interview focusing on algorithms and data structures. Medium difficulty problems using a shared coding environment.
Onsite Interviews (4-5 rounds):
- Coding Rounds (2-3): Algorithm problems covering arrays, strings, trees, graphs, and dynamic programming. LinkedIn values efficient solutions with good time/space complexity.
- System Design (1 round): Design scalable systems like social networks, news feeds, messaging platforms, or recommendation systems. Consider data modeling and graph structures.
- Behavioral (1 round): Questions about collaboration, driving results, and building relationships. LinkedIn values “relationships matter” as a core principle.
Common Question Topics
- Graphs: Social network analysis, connection recommendations, shortest path between professionals
- Trees: Binary trees, tree traversals, organizational hierarchies
- Hash Tables: Deduplication, frequency analysis, caching
- Sorting/Searching: Custom sorting, binary search variations
- System Design: Social networks, recommendation engines, news feed algorithms, messaging systems, search indexing
Preparation Tips
- Study Graph Algorithms: LinkedIn’s core is a social graph. Master BFS, DFS, shortest path, and graph traversal problems.
- Practice Medium Problems: Focus on 100-150 LeetCode problems at medium difficulty. LinkedIn rarely asks extremely hard questions.
- Understand LinkedIn’s Products: Use LinkedIn actively. Understand feed algorithms, connection suggestions, job recommendations, and messaging.
- Show Data-Driven Thinking: LinkedIn emphasizes metrics and A/B testing. Discuss how you’ve used data to make decisions.
- Prepare Collaboration Stories: Demonstrate strong relationship-building and cross-team collaboration.
Interview Culture
LinkedIn values transformation, integrity, collaboration, humor, and results. The company culture emphasizes building relationships, data-driven decisions, and creating economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce. Show genuine interest in connecting professionals and career development.
Last Updated: February 2026