Salesforce SMTS Interview Experience with DSA and LLD
Question Details
The recruiter reached out to me directly for the SMTS role and shared a link to apply. She asked me to apply within an hour, after which I would receive the online assessment (OA) link. I was instruct
Full Details
The recruiter reached out to me directly for the SMTS role and shared a link to apply. She asked me to apply within an hour, after which I would receive the online assessment (OA) link. I was instructed to complete it within 24 hours, and if I cleared it, she would schedule two rounds (DSA and LLD) on Friday. #
Round 1 (OA) 1. Remove duplicates values from Linked List 2. Two Strings form a complementary pair if there exists some permutation of their concatenation that forms a palndrome. For example, the strings "abac" and "cab" form a complementary pair since their concatenation "abaccab" cab be rearranged to form the palndrome "bcaacb". Given an array of strings, find the number of complementary pairs that can be formed.
Note that pairs(i, j) and (i, j) are considered same. #
Round 2 (DSA) Interview was SMTS 1. https://leetcode.com/problems/reorganize-string/ 2. https://leetcode.com/problems/combination-sum-ii/description/ #
Round 3 (LLD + Coding) The interviewer was an LMTS. He told me we would first work on the design and then move to the implementation. Initially, he asked me to implement a thread-safe task scheduler. I spent time on the design, but I struggled with the implementation since I hadn’t worked with threads recently. I mentioned this to him, and he was considerate enough to change the question, but I only had about 20 minutes left. The new question was a direct implementation of the
Observer Pattern, which I quickly recognized. I implemented it and explained my approach to him. After that, he asked me to modify the implementation for Kafka (Producer and Consumer) and later asked a few additional questions related to Kafka. #
Round 4 (Onsite Hiring Manager) Interviewer was Sr. Engineering Manager We spent some time getting to know each other, and she was very professional and made me feel comfortable. It was one of the best hiring manager interview experiences I’ve had. We discussed my past experience and the project they are hiring for. She also asked a few behavioral questions based on my work. She mentioned that I have 5 years of experience and that I am interviewing for the SMTS role, while most SMTS engineers on her team have around 7 years of experience. To maintain role consistency within the team, she said she would suggest the MTS role for me. I responded that I have seen people on LinkedIn with around 5 years of experience working as SMTS. She said I could negotiate the level with the recruiter, and that she would be fine with it if the recruiter agreed. She also asked about my job changes, as I am currently in my third company within 5 years. I explained my reasons honestly and provided context about my decisions. She appreciated my honesty. Based on my assessment, this could be one possible concern, as the rest of the interview went very well.
Current status: I have tried reaching out to the recruiter multiple times, but she has not responded to my calls. The hiring manager mentioned that she submitted her feedback immediately after the interview.
About This Question
This is a reported interview question from a salesforce interview for a swe role during the system design round reported in 2026.
It covers the following topics: Arrays, Strings, Linked List, Concurrency, System Design, Backtracking, Oop, Behavioral .
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This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Salesforce. 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 Salesforce are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Salesforce 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 Salesforce reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Salesforce 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 Salesforce 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.