Applied for a senior SWE role on Lilly's digital health platform team in early 2026. Came from a FAANG background so I was curious how pharma tech compares. Short version: slower, friendlier, and weirdly less algorithmic than you'd expect.
Timeline breakdown: Applied online, heard back in 11 days Recruiter screen (30 min) Technical phone screen with a hiring manager (45 min, mostly discussion + one coding question) Online assessment via HackerRank (2 hours) Virtual onsite: 4 rounds, spread over one day
Total elapsed time from apply to offer: about 6 weeks. That's slower than big tech but faster than most pharma I've seen.
The onsite had two coding rounds, one system design, and one behavioral. Coding was LeetCode medium difficulty, nothing wild. They use Python and Java heavily on the team I was targeting. The system design was focused on internal tooling scenarios, not the usual 'design Twitter' stuff. Think: how would you build a data pipeline that ingests clinical trial results and makes them queryable by research teams. Actual, specific domain.
Behavioral section was longer than I expected. They really lean into the values piece. There's a formal set of Lilly values (integrity, excellence, respect) and interviewers reference them explicitly. Not subtly. They will literally say 'tell me about a time you demonstrated integrity' and mean it.
Comp for senior SWE in Indianapolis 2026: base around $135-145k. The total package looks thinner than big tech but the benefits are genuinely good and the WLB is real. No on-call rotations at the level I was interviewing for.
DM me if you have specific questions about the rounds.