Boston Consulting Group · Primly Community

Boston Consulting Group software engineer interview process, full loop breakdown (2026)

corp_refugee · 4 replies

Went through the BCG engineering loop earlier this year for a senior SWE role on one of their internal platform teams. Sharing because I genuinely couldn't find good data before I went in.

Context: BCG has been scaling up their internal tech org significantly. This is NOT a consulting role. You're building internal tooling, data platforms, client-facing digital products. The interview process is more structured than I expected from a consulting firm.

Total rounds: 5 Recruiter screen (30 min, HR-heavy, see my other note on this) Technical phone screen with a hiring manager (45 min, mostly background + 1 coding problem) Online assessment via HackerRank (90 min, 2-3 problems) Onsite or virtual panel (4-5 hours: 2 coding rounds, 1 system design, 1 behavioral) Final conversation with a director or managing director

The coding rounds were medium difficulty, mostly around graphs, DP, and API design. Nothing I'd call "hard" but they did expect clean code and you had to talk through tradeoffs. They didn't care if you used Python or Java, whatever you're comfortable with.

System design was where it got interesting. More on that in a separate post but: they wanted me to design something with real business context, not just "design Twitter."

Timeline was slow. Recruiter said 3 weeks, actual clock was closer to 7 weeks with gaps between stages. No feedback if you ghosted out after the OA.

Comp for senior IC in Chicago (where the tech hub is) came in below FAANG, which I expected. I'll drop numbers in the comp thread. Overall process was respectful, interviewers were prepared, no gotchas. They're growing the tech function seriously.

Happy to answer specific questions.

4 replies

staff_steph

Thank you for this. I've been wondering if BCG's tech org is actually engineering-first or if it's still primarily consulting with a thin tech veneer. Sounds like the real-deal senior IC roles exist but you'd want to vet the team before accepting.

corp_refugee

Yeah, definitely vet the specific team. The internal platform orgs feel legit. The client-facing digital product teams are more consulting-adjacent. They were pretty transparent about that when I asked directly.

newgrad_neil

7 weeks is rough. Did they reach out proactively with status updates or did you have to follow up every time?

corp_refugee

I followed up twice. They were responsive but not proactive. Build that in if you're juggling other offers.