Technical lead for CI/CD and validation infrastructure on Netflix's Open Connect edge appliance fleet

Own the automated CI/CD and validation infrastructure that qualifies Open Connect edge cache appliances (OS, firmware, BMC, BIOS, platform software) before they hit a fleet delivering ~15% of global downstream internet traffic. Requires 10+ years including CI/CD ownership and large-scale test automation architecture, strong Linux/FreeBSD systems depth, and technical leadership mentoring engineers building release qualification.

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What this interview tests

CI/CD and large-scale test automation architecture
Linux/FreeBSD systems debugging (boot, networking, storage)
Hardware/firmware/OS boundary regression triage
AI-assisted failure triage tooling with guardrails
Technical leadership and mentoring on a validation team

Common question themes

Design an automated validation pipeline for edge appliance releases with clear release gates

Debugging a regression that spans hardware, firmware, and OS layers

How would you apply AI tooling to failure triage while keeping it auditable

Tell me about leading and mentoring engineers on test automation

Building dashboards/alerting for regression and performance drift detection

How candidates describe it

Real Software Engineer L5 - Edge Platform Automation & Validation interview stories — retold from candidates' public write-ups, with sources.

Google · L5 Software EngineerNo offer

Google L5 software engineer interview: phone screening, three onsite rounds, system design, and a late rejection

A candidate interviewing for an L5 role went through a phone screening, three onsite coding rounds, a mobile system design round, and a Googleyness and Leadership round. Two of the four technical rounds went poorly by the candidate's own assessment, and after roughly two months of silence the recruiter reported that the role had been closed.

Interviewed January 2023 · Not specified

Google · L5 Software EngineerOffer

Google L5 software engineer interview: phone screen waived, vague onsite prompts, and an extra round before an offer

A senior software engineer with eight years of experience went through a Google L5 loop as part of a multi-company search that also produced offers from Bloomberg and Facebook. Google waived the phone screen and moved straight to a virtual onsite of three coding rounds, a system design round, and a Googlyness round; the panel then asked for two additional coding rounds and another system design round before the process concluded in an offer.

Interviewed 2021 · Not specified

Google · L3 Software EngineerOffer

Google L3 software engineer interview: phone screen, four coding rounds, and the Googleyness round

A candidate with two years of experience went from recruiter outreach to offer over about four months. The onsite was four 45-minute coding rounds — three of them featuring binary trees — and one round turned into a 25-minute chain of follow-ups about approximating an optimal solution at scale.

Interviewed June 2020 · Bangalore, IN

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