HCA Healthcare · Primly Community

HCA Healthcare software engineer interview process, full loop breakdown (2026)

corp_refugee · 4 replies

went through the HCA Healthcare software engineer interview process earlier this year for a senior backend role on their patient data platform team, nashville-based but they offered full remote. posting details because i couldn't find much useful signal before mine.

recruiter screen (30 min): standard. asked about current stack, why HCA, rough timeline. recruiter was pretty prepared, actually knew the team i was applying to.

hiring manager call (45 min): this one mattered more than i expected. roughly half was technical background and half was culture/values fit. HCA is a large hospital system and they take the mission stuff seriously. the manager specifically asked how i thought about building software in healthcare contexts, like data sensitivity, audit trails, compliance. if you come from pure consumer tech and act dismissive of that stuff, i think you wash out here.

technical phone screen (60 min): live coding on a shared editor, not hackerrank or any OA platform. one medium-difficulty problem, something array/hash-map based. then about 20 minutes of system design-lite: they described a real-ish scenario (high-read, eventually consistent notification service for clinical staff) and asked how you'd approach it. nothing crazy, but they want to see you think out loud.

virtual onsite (3 hours, split across 2 days): four rounds total. 1hr system design: full design session, more depth than the phone screen. i'll post separately about this. 1hr coding: two problems, one medium one easy, both had a healthcare data flavor (patient records, appointment scheduling logic) 45min behavioral: STAR format, pretty heavy on "tell me about a time you had to deal with ambiguity" and collaboration under pressure 45min cross-functional chat: someone from the product or clinical side, basically checking culture fit

timeline: recruiter screen to offer was about 5 weeks for me. debrief took almost 2 weeks which felt long, but the recruiter stayed communicative throughout.

overall impression: more structured than i expected for a healthcare company. they clearly have a real engineering org, not just IT support for a hospital. the comp was below FAANG but solid for nashville and for healthcare sector standards.

4 replies

jp_newgrad

this is so helpful, thank you. do you remember roughly what level the senior role mapped to? like was it explicitly L4/L5 or just "senior"? i'm applying for a mid-level role and trying to figure out if the coding difficulty scales.

remote_swe_42

they don't use numbered levels publicly, just "senior," "staff," etc. the coding difficulty i described was for the senior band. i'd guess mid-level is one medium problem max and probably less design depth.

bootcamp_bri

the 2-day split for the onsite is actually kind of nice. gives you time to decompress between rounds. i've done 4-hour marathon onsites before and by the last round i'm just... empty.

returner_ren

the part about taking healthcare context seriously is good to know. i'm coming from fintech and i think the compliance/data-sensitivity angle actually translates well. good to know it's a real differentiator there.