Kaiser Permanente · Primly Community

Kaiser Permanente software engineer interview process, full loop: what actually happened

market_realist · 4 replies

Applied for a senior SWE role on KP's digital health platform team, got through the whole loop in about 5 weeks. Figured I'd write it up since there's almost nothing on here about what the tech interview actually looks like.

The process in order: Recruiter call (30 min) Technical phone screen with a hiring manager (45 min) Online coding assessment via HackerRank (90 min) Virtual onsite: 4 rounds back to back on one day

The onsite was the surprise. It was fully virtual, all Zoom, and structured pretty tightly. I had: one coding round, one system design round, two behavioral rounds. The behavioral rounds were heavier than I expected, probably 45 minutes each. KP takes their culture and mission stuff seriously. Like, you will be asked about working in a regulated environment, navigating large organizations, and dealing with constraints you can't control.

The technical bar felt like a good-mid-FAANG level. Not LeetCode hard territory, but they wanted to see clean code, edge-case thinking, and the ability to articulate tradeoffs. System design was healthcare-specific, something around how you'd architect a patient notification system. They cared a lot about reliability, PHI handling, and what happens when things fail.

Total from application to offer: about 7 weeks. The recruiter was responsive, which I appreciated. Offer came with a verbal then written within about a week of the final round.

One thing to know: KP moves slower than tech companies. They're a nonprofit health system with a huge IT org. Not a bad thing, but set expectations accordingly. The engineering culture feels more like a big enterprise than a startup, and that's fine if that's what you're after.

Happy to answer specifics if anyone has questions.

4 replies

pivot_pat

This is incredibly helpful, thank you. Did they ask any specific healthcare domain questions during the system design, or was it more general distributed systems knowledge? I'm interviewing for a junior role and not sure how much I need to learn about HIPAA/PHI before I go in.

corp_refugee

At the junior level I wouldn't go deep on HIPAA specifics, but know the basics: PHI is sensitive, encryption in transit and at rest matters, audit logs are mandatory. More importantly, show that you think about security and compliance as real constraints, not afterthoughts. They respect engineers who ask 'what are the data sensitivity requirements here?' during system design.

tired_recruiter

The 7-week timeline checks out with what I've heard from candidates going through there. Large health systems have hiring committee overhead that pure tech companies don't. 4-5 weeks from onsite to offer is common in this sector.

visa_vik

Do they sponsor H1B? I've been searching their job posts and some say 'sponsorship not available' but I've seen others without that clause. Trying to figure out if it's role-by-role or blanket.