Red Hat Interview Experience for Software Engineer Intern (Off-Campus)
Interview Experience
There was a total of 4 rounds after the “Application Shortlisting” part.ROUND 1 (Aptitude Round): The aptitude questions were moderate and it covered all most all of the t...
Full Details
There was a total of 4 rounds after the “Application Shortlisting” part. ROUND 1 (Aptitude Round): The aptitude questions were moderate and it covered all most all of the topics. It is not necessary for you to remember any formula. Most of the problem involved solving it logically. If you know the concepts you can solve. Majority of the questions were on probability, permutation combination, work and time, average, ratio, and few which combined the concepts. One could crack easily if you brush up the Aptitude concepts. Programs: You need to be strong to answer this programmatic questions. All the questions were either from C or C++. some of the questions I remember was on Macro functions With different signatures Operators precedence checking snippet Main within main function Switch special cases Loop exceptional cases Storage classes and so on ROUND 2 (Technical Interview 1): The First Technical Interview was with Team Leader, he just ask some technical questions and had some discussion on the projects I have made. Then there is a short discussion on the technologies I work and some Logical problems. ROUND 3 (Technical Interview 2): In this Technical Interview, I was given two programs: https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/transform-one-string-to-another-using-minimum-number-of-given-operation/ https://www.geeksforgeeks.org/dsa/lowest-common-ancestor-binary-tree-set-1/ After there were some questions asked based on: Computer Fundamentals (Operating System, Computer Networks) DBMS Some Language Related questions (in my case it was Python)
Verdict SELECTED
About This Question
This is a candidate experience report from a red hat interview for a swe role (intern level) during the phone screen round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: Trees, Strings, Binary Tree, Os, Probability Stats, Backtracking .
Difficulty rating: Medium
About Red Hat Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Red Hat. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Red Hat are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Red Hat interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Red Hat reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Red Hat Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Red Hat reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.