This time I'd like to share my experience interviewing at CVS Health Software Engineer.CVS As the largest retail pharmacy and healthcare company in the U.S., many people's first thought may be "pharmacy," but they're actually in the healthcare technology The direction of the input is very fierce, like prescription automation (pharmacy automation), digital prescription delivery (digital prescription delivery), MinuteClinic's digital platform are all engineering team is doing. During the interview process, I obviously felt that the test points are not only traditional coding & system design, but also a lot of scenarios close to the medical business, which is very unique.
There were four rounds of interviews in total, each with a different focus, and my whole process felt like a gradual deepening: motivation first, then the basics, then practical design, and finally general ability.
Warm Up: Recruiter Chat
The first level was a recruiter phone screen, which was just the usual questions: I talked about my background, why I was interested in CVS, and my salary expectation. I emphasized my interest in digital health and mentioned my previous side projects related to healthcare. the recruiter was very buy in and added that CVS is investing in digital pharmacy and data-driven healthcare. Recruiter was very buy in and added that CVS is investing in digital pharmacy and data-driven healthcare. Overall the atmosphere was very relaxed, just as a warm-up.
Technical Fundamentals + Coding
The next round was the technical phone interview, which was very "authentic", including OOP, database, and data structure. For example:
- OOP: I was asked to talk about the practical application of inheritance and polymorphism, so I combined it with the example of using strategy pattern to handle different payment methods when I was working on a payment system.
- Database: ask SQL vs NoSQL and also explain B-tree index.
- Data structures: array vs linked list complexity comparison, hash table collisions how to deal with.
The most interesting is coding. the title is a variant of Two Sum:
Given an array of integers and a target value, return all unique pairs whose sum is the target value, outputting them in ascending order.
I wrote the brute force solution (O(n²)) and then optimized it to a hash map with O(n). the interviewer also asked what to do if the memory is limited. I said I could sort it first and then use two pointers to reduce the space complexity to O(1). The interviewer also asked me what I should do if I have limited memory.
Practical Coding: Prescription Management System
The third round is the main focus, and it's kind of like a mini design + coding challenge. The topic is: design a prescription management system that supports six operations such as adding a prescription, refilling a prescription, and finding a patient's prescription.
I started by defining a few core classes, Patient, Medication, and Prescription, and then wrote a PharmacySystemIt's in there. add_prescription,process_refill Something like that.
The interviewer will ask in depth:
- concurrent accessWhat to do? I answered that it could work.
threading.Lock()to ensure thread safety. - performance optimizationHow? I mentioned indexing and caching.
- data securityWhat about it? I say when it comes to medical privacy, consider access control and HIPAA compliance.
- test (machinery etc)Is there a writeup? So I made up a couple unit tests to cover the main scenarios.
This round made me realize that the CVS interview is different from other tech companies: it doesn't just ask you to write an algorithm, but to think about how to ensure correctness, performance and security in a real healthcare system.
System Design + Behavioral Surfaces
The last level is the most comprehensive: half system design, half behavioral.
Design's topic is Prescription Delivery System, and I've drawn a high-level architecture: a user places an order from a Web/Mobile App, and the order is delivered to the user's computer via the API Gateway Then we move on to the order service, and then to the database and delivery service. I emphasized scalability, reliability, and fault tolerance (e.g., how to retry if a delivery fails).
The Behavioral section was more conventional: I was asked how I resolved team conflicts, when I demonstrated leadership, and why CVS. I tried to link my answers to CVS's mission (helping people on their path to better health), and the interviewer nodded quite frequently.
My overall feelings
CVS's Software Engineer interview experience is characterized by the fact that it is not only basic, but also close to the healthcare scenarios. Coding and system design questions are not "fancy", but when they are put in the healthcare context, they have unique challenges, especially when it comes to data security and system reliability. Coding and system design questions are not fancy, but when they are put in healthcare context, they have unique challenges, especially when it comes to data security and system reliability.
If you are also going to prepare CVS Health or similar healthcare technology careersI suggest:
- Basic algorithms and data structures must be proficient, especially hash map, two pointers, OOP principles.
- System design is heavily practiced with security, compliance and scalability in mind, as medical data is naturally sensitive.
- Behavioral interviews don't just talk about generic teamwork, but combine it with a passion for healthcare, which is especially a plus at CVS.
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