My Profile
Experience: ~2 years as a Java & C++ Software Dev
Education: BE/BTech Computer Science

I reached out to a recruiter on Linkedin and applied on their careers page. I got a response within a week and the interview was setup pretty quickly.

Round 1
Adyen focusses a lot on your cultural fit into the company. Round 1 is more like a getting to know you round, there would be questions on your resume and about yourself, not too technical. It is a basic screening round and unless they see some major red flags this should be easy to clear. Be prepared with answers to question on Why Adyen, Why Amsterdam and Why Adyen compared to your current role.

Round 2
Codility Test - 3 hours, 4 questions:

• 1 Bug Fixing (Java)
• 1 Easy algorithms question(Java)
• 1 Medium SQL question (Postgres)
• 1 Java Streams question (Hard)

Post-round 1, they will send out a link and ask you to compete the test within a week at your convenient time.

I had bit of a challenge preparing for this as I normally solve DSA questions in C++ while I use Java at work and was interviewing for a Java position. As a result, the test did not have language options and was mandated in Java. I was also challenged by SQL as I didn't use it on a daily basis. I cleared the test with a good % score (they display the report immediately after the test).

Round 3
This was a 1 hour long technical interview round. They discuss your Codility questions and the approach you took to solve them and what could you have done to improve your score/what mistake you made. I couldn't find the mistake in my SQL answer immediately so was given some hints and managed to figure it out eventually. They will ask you questions on your most challenging project and technical problems you faced in that. How did you go around those problems and what ws your approach to solve those. In the last 15 mins or so, I was asked questions on cryptography, a bit of system design and some other CS concepts. Expect Why Adyen questions here as well.

Post-this I was selected for the on-site but because of the covid crisis, my on-site interviews were scheduled virtually.

Round 4
A follow up/continuation to Round 3. Expect questions on finer details of what you share. Codility solutions won't be discussed anymore. This is where I got rejected. I was unable to drive the interview to my strong points and got caught in areas I was not too sure about. I was asked questions on my projects, API design, cryptography etc. The best way to prepare for these interviews is to memorise minute details of everything you have mentioned on your resume. For the projects you mention, please remember how you went about it. If you don't remember the finer details, you would probably end up floundering and contradicting yourself as you remember the sketchy details.

Round 5 and 6
Although my process stopped in Round 4, I was informed about the contents of Round 5 & 6. Round 5 is a high level continuation of Round 4, they mentioned that the interviews won't dig deeper anymore but would like to assess your technical skills from a higher level (more like assessing your breadth than depth).

Round 6 is a 30 mins discussion with a senior VP level person(Board member is what they call at Adyen).

HR Discussions
The company offers relocation assistance amounting to 2K Euros in addition to flight tickets and extra baggage. The pay is decent per European pay-grade (my research, not necessarily true). At my level, I was offerred a rough ball-park figure of 55K Euros a year + some equity and health cover.

Resources I used for Preparation:

• Algorithm Questions (initially InterviewBit and then Leetcode)
• System Design (Gaurav Sen videos) and researched popular questions from google.
• SQL (HackerRank)
• Java Streams (Function Programming in Java 9 with streams - Linkedin Learning)

Overall Experience with Process: Positive