ok so i interviewed at sony for an entry level software engineer role and made it to the final round before getting a reject. sharing because i spent like two weeks trying to find any real info and came up almost empty.
here's what the sony new grad / entry level interview process looked like for me (applied through their careers site, no referral):
1. online assessment: codility platform, 2 coding problems, 90 minutes. both were medium difficulty. one was a BFS/shortest path variant, one was string manipulation with edge cases. nothing wild but the time limit is tight if you're not warmed up.
2. recruiter call: friendly, 20 min. she confirmed the role, team (PlayStation mobile in my case), and asked basic background questions. also told me they don't have a dedicated new grad program but hire entry level into team-specific roles throughout the year.
3. technical phone screen: one hour with an engineer. 1 coding problem (medium, dynamic programming-ish), 20 min of questions about my projects. the project questions were surprisingly detailed. they asked about my choices, what i'd change, what tradeoffs i made. came prepared for "walk me through it" but this went way deeper.
4. virtual onsite: 4 rounds back to back. two coding (mediums, nothing harder), one system design (design a feature for a mobile game notification system, entry-level-calibrated so they weren't expecting production-grade depth), and one behavioral.
for prep: i did LC mediums daily for 3 weeks, read the system design primer for high-level concepts, and drilled behavioral using STAR structure. the behavioral round asked about a conflict with a teammate and about a time i had to learn something fast.
the reject came 10 days after the final round. no feedback. pretty standard unfortunately.
tl;dr: medium-difficulty coding, project depth matters, light system design, one behavioral. similar to most mid-tier tech companies. not as brutal as FAANG, not as easy as smaller companies.