Salesforce SMTS Interview Experience: Bengaluru, 2023

SalesforceSMTS (Senior Member of Technical Staff)·Bengaluru·Interviewed October 2023Offer

Updated July 17, 2026

A candidate with five-plus years of experience interviewed for a Senior Member of Technical Staff (SMTS) role at Salesforce in Bengaluru in October 2023. The process was conducted on a personal laptop, with interviewers sharing a live coding link so both sides could see the same code in real time.

The loop covered three stages: a one-hour coding round with three medium-difficulty problems, a ninety-minute low-level design round centered on an in-memory file system, and a forty-five-minute hiring manager conversation focused on past project work and motivation for joining. The candidate was ultimately selected.

How the process went

Format
Interviews were conducted on a personal laptop, with interviewers sharing a live coding link so both sides could see the same code.
Round 1: Coding
One-hour session with three medium-difficulty problems, roughly twenty minutes each, taken by an SMTS-level engineer (SDE2-equivalent).
Round 2: Low-Level Design
Ninety-minute session taken by an LMTS-level engineer (SDE3-equivalent), designing an in-memory file system with layered follow-up requirements.
Hiring Manager Round
Forty-five-minute conversation covering the candidate's recent project work, engineering judgment, and motivation for joining Salesforce.
Outcome
The candidate was selected for the SMTS role.

Round 1: Coding

Algorithmic problem solving under time pressure · 1 hour

Number of Islands
Number of Closed Islands (a follow-up to Number of Islands)
Given a string of only characters a, b, and c, find the minimum number of characters to insert so the string follows the repeating pattern "abcabcabc"

Three medium-difficulty problems were given in one hour, leaving about twenty minutes per question.

The candidate was expected to briefly explain a brute-force approach, move to a more efficient solution, and discuss time and space complexity before implementing it.

After implementing each solution, the candidate ran manual test inputs, and the interviewer added edge cases to check against.

Round 2: Low-Level Design (LLD)

Object-oriented design of an in-memory file system · 1.5 hours

Design an in-memory file system and write out the class structure
How would you efficiently search the file system?
How would you handle user permissions and group permissions?
How would you list files in a folder, similar to the Unix "ls" command?
How would you handle input options?

The candidate could write the class structure on a whiteboard or laptop, whichever was more comfortable.

Follow-up requirements were layered on progressively, so the initial design needed to stay extendable.

The candidate's first attempts at some follow-ups were less efficient; after the interviewer pushed back, the candidate worked out better solutions.

Familiarity with common design patterns was described as helpful for this round.

Hiring Manager Round

Past project depth and motivation for joining · 45 minutes

Introduce yourself and hear an introduction from the hiring manager
Explain the most recent project you've worked on
If you could redo that project without constraints like budget, deadlines, or resources, what would you do differently?
Did you research existing solutions and question your approach before starting the project?
How would you make sure a system doesn't regress?
How would you check for performance metrics?
How would you go about identifying a failure in a system?
Why do you want to join Salesforce?
What are you hoping to get out of joining Salesforce?

The hiring manager also gave a detailed explanation of the org and the work it does.

The candidate described this round as smooth and conversational, with most questions centered on past work and relevant knowledge.

Key takeaways

In a tight one-hour coding round with multiple problems, practice narrating your approach quickly: brute force, optimal solution, complexity, then implementation, since time per problem can be limited to about twenty minutes.
For LLD rounds like an in-memory file system, start with a design that can absorb new requirements, since follow-ups are likely to be layered on afterward.
Refresh common design patterns before an LLD round; being able to justify and improve design choices helped when the interviewer pushed for more efficient follow-up solutions.
Prepare a clear, detailed walkthrough of your most recent project, including what you'd change without typical constraints, since hiring manager rounds may probe this in depth.
Have a considered answer ready for why you want to join the company and what you hope to get from the role, alongside general engineering judgment questions on regressions and monitoring.

Practice a Salesforce interview

Rehearse out loud against the kinds of questions in this story — with an AI interviewer that asks follow-ups.

Practice this interview

Source

The questions and process facts come from the candidate's public write-up, linked below. The retelling above is our own summary.

Candidate's public write-up on LeetCode Discuss