Salesforce Software Engineer Offer After 16 Rejections
Updated July 17, 2026
The candidate, based in Bengaluru with more than eight years of experience, listed interview loops with twelve companies including Applied Mechanics, Ninelapps, Digit88, Twilio, Smarsh, Salesforce, PayPal, Zeta, Alation, CrowdStrike, Amazon, and GitHub, adding up to seventeen interviews and sixteen rejections in total. Twilio and Salesforce were running in parallel for part of that stretch.
Salesforce itself came up twice. An earlier loop of two rounds ended in rejection after a low-level design round in which the candidate was asked to work through an entity-relationship model and got tangled up mixing it with class-diagram concepts, without recovering before time ran out. A separate, later opening led to a four-round loop covering coding, design, a hiring-manager round, and a VP round; the candidate learned of the offer within a few days of that final round.
How the process went
Broad job search
Applied and interviewed across roughly a dozen companies, logging seventeen interviews in total, with sixteen ending in rejection before an offer came through.
First Salesforce loop
A two-round loop — a technical round followed by a low-level design round — ended in rejection. The candidate attributed the outcome to getting confused between an entity-relationship model and class-diagram concepts during the design round and not recovering.
Parallel processes
During the same period, a separate six-round Twilio loop (a Hacker Rank round, a hiring-manager round, a coding round, a design round, a product-manager round, and a bar-raiser round) was also underway; despite the candidate rating their own performance as strong, that loop ended in rejection over a stated values-fit concern.
Second Salesforce loop
A later, separate Salesforce opening led to a four-round loop: a coding round, a design round, a hiring-manager round, and a VP round.
Outcome
The candidate learned they had been selected for the role within two to three days of finishing the final round.
Round 1 (First Loop) - Technical Round
General technical screening
- Specific topics covered in this round were not detailed in the original post.
Part of an earlier Salesforce loop that ended in rejection at the next round.
Round 2 (First Loop) - Low-Level Design
Data modeling for a low-level design exercise
- Work through a low-level design that included an entity-relationship (ER) model.
Candidate reported getting confused between the ER model and class-diagram concepts and not recovering; this was the stated reason for the rejection.
Round 1 (Second Loop) - Coding
Coding round
- Specific problems covered in this round were not detailed in the original post.
Part of a separate, later Salesforce loop that ended in an offer.
Round 2 (Second Loop) - Design
Design round
- Specific design topics covered in this round were not detailed in the original post.
Round 3 (Second Loop) - Hiring Manager Round
Hiring-manager discussion
- Specific discussion points covered in this round were not detailed in the original post.
Round 4 (Second Loop) - VP Round
VP-level discussion
- Specific discussion points covered in this round were not detailed in the original post.
Final round of the loop; the candidate learned of the offer within two to three days afterward.
Key takeaways
- A rejection at a company does not necessarily rule out a later opening there — this candidate went through two separate Salesforce loops, with the second one converting to an offer.
- Low-level design rounds can hinge on precise terminology; rehearse the distinction between an entity-relationship model and a class diagram so the two don't get mixed up under time pressure.
- Running several interview loops in parallel, as with Twilio and Salesforce here, can be workable but spreads preparation time thin — plan round-specific prep for each process rather than relying on general readiness.
- Values- or culture-fit criteria vary by company and can end a loop even after strong technical rounds; treat them as a distinct prep area rather than an afterthought.
- A high rejection count across many companies in one search does not necessarily reflect a ceiling on skill — treat each loop as its own independent evaluation.
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