JetBrains Engineering Hiring Process: A Recruiter Explains What to Expect (And How to Prepare)

If you’re applying for an engineering role at JetBrains, here’s what the recruitment process looks like. We’ll walk you through each stage, explain what recruiters and hiring teams are looking for, and share what actually makes a difference in getting hired.

What’s different about hiring at JetBrains?

The steps in our recruitment process are not wildly different from those you’ll find at other tech companies. If you’ve interviewed elsewhere, you won’t run into surprise rounds or exercises designed to trip you up.

However, what is different is what we’re evaluating.

JetBrains engineers work on complex tools for developers who care deeply about how software behaves in real-world use. That raises the bar – not just for technical skill, but for how engineers think about problems.

Throughout the recruitment process, we’re validating whether candidates can reason about trade-offs, understand the “why” behind what they’re building, and take responsibility beyond executing predefined tasks. In many roles at JetBrains, you won’t just pick up tickets and ship them. You’ll help shape solutions, question assumptions, and improve systems over time. The structure of the process reflects that reality.

Step 1: CV – What recruiters actually care about

Our recruiters often see hundreds of CVs per role. The checklist below breaks down what will help yours stand out for the right reasons, and what’s better left out.

• Make it easy to understand within seconds.
  Clear structure, consistent formatting, and a logical flow matter far more than visual creativity.
• Use a clean layout.
  Any design is fine as long as it’s readable. Headings should stand out, dates should be easy to spot, and the timeline should be obvious.
• Keep it to 1–2 pages if you’re an experienced candidate.
  The “one-page CV” rule is a myth. Two pages are perfectly fine. What matters is relevance, not page count.
• Prioritize impact over responsibilities.
  Avoid task lists. Instead, show outcomes like:
  • What problem were you solving?
  • What did you build or change?
  • What improved, scaled, shipped, or became simpler as a result?
  • What was your role in that outcome?
    
• Be explicit about job titles, scope, and tenure.
  Make it clear what your role was and how long you were in it. Clarity here reduces unnecessary follow-up questions.
• Add just enough company context.
  A short line explaining what the company or product does helps recruiters understand your environment, especially if the company isn’t well-known.
• Focus on the most relevant experience for your next role.
  Older or less relevant roles can be summarized briefly. Go into more depth only where it matters.
• Use standard job titles.
  Internal or creative titles often don’t translate well outside your company. Clear, widely understood titles make it easier to match you to the right roles.
• Remove details that invite bias or add noise.
  Photos, date of birth, marital status, long hobby sections – none of that helps. Most recruiters try to avoid anything that makes decisions less objective.
• Make sure all links are clickable.
  If you include LinkedIn or GitHub links, make sure they’re clickable. Broken links create friction.

Do cover letters matter for engineering roles?

Most cover letters are not helpful. Many simply repeat what’s already in the CV or contain generic enthusiasm.

A useful cover letter is essentially a shortcut version of the recruiter screen, answering:

• What you’ve done (with impact).
• What kind of work motivates you.
• Why this role makes sense as a next step.

That said, a good cover letter will not compensate for a confusing or weak CV. If the CV doesn’t work, the cover letter will usually not help.

Step 2: A recruiter call – what we’re evaluating

After a successful CV review, the next step is usually a recruiter call. From a recruiter’s perspective, the goal of this call is alignment on skills, motivation, and growth trajectory. 

First, prepare a clear narrative of your recent experience. A great recruiter screen is one where you can clearly walk us through your last two or three roles, with enough context to grasp your impact. We’re looking to understand:

• The product or system you worked on.
• Which parts you owned or influenced.
• The scale of the product.
• How your team worked.
• Who your main stakeholders were.
• The outcomes you helped achieve.

Then, think through what you want from your next role and why. This question is often underestimated, but it’s one of the most important parts of the conversation. It helps us understand not only what excites you, but also whether the role and the company can realistically meet your expectations. 

For example, if you expect a tech lead promotion within a year, but the role doesn’t support that path, that mismatch matters. It doesn’t mean you’re wrong or unqualified for the job. It simply means expectations may not be aligned, and that’s something we try to identify early.

Finally, come prepared with a few questions of your own. Asking about team structure, onboarding, collaboration, and growth opportunities shows engagement and helps you decide whether the role is right for you. 

Step 3: Team interview 

In this round, you’ll typically meet one or two team members (occasionally three), as well as the hiring manager. 

This interview includes a small live technical exercise. Depending on the team, that might be:

• Live coding.
• A short case study.
• A live code review.

You’ll likely also be asked about projects you’ve worked on or led, and the decisions and trade-offs behind them.

The purpose isn’t to exhaustively test knowledge. We’re trying to gain an initial understanding of how you think, how you approach problems, and how you communicate technical decisions.

Recruiters typically share what the interview will focus on and what skills will be evaluated. If an interview includes algorithmic questions, you’ll get a heads-up so you can prepare.

Like every stage of the process, this is a two-way conversation. Beyond the technical exercise, it’s an opportunity for you to meet the people you would be working with, ask questions, and get a sense of how the team collaborates, communicates, and makes decisions day to day.

Step 4: Take-home task

For most roles, the technical interview is followed by a take-home task. It’s designed to reflect realistic work rather than puzzle-style problems.

In some cases, teams are open to alternatives. If you have a technically serious side project or open-source contribution, you may be able to share that instead of completing a take-home task – as long as it’s relevant and substantial enough to evaluate.

The goal of this stage isn’t to see how much you can build. It’s to understand how you structure solutions, make decisions, and write code when you have time to think, or, on the contrary, have time constraints. 

It’s important to keep in mind that the strongest candidates don’t win by overengineering. 

The most important signal is whether you followed the instructions. If core requirements aren’t met, extra features won’t help.

Engineers sometimes build – what we call – a “spaceship” solution to showcase their skills. While well-intentioned, this often backfires. Teams usually care more about clean, readable code and sound judgment than complexity.

Step 5: Task review 

If the task is completed successfully, you’ll be invited to discuss it with the team.

We’ll review: 

• The decisions you made. 
• The trade-offs you considered. 
• How you’d evolve the solution. 
• Whether and how you used AI tools during the process.

This step is important because it shows how you explain technical thinking, respond to feedback, and communicate decisions – all core skills for senior engineering work.

Step 6: References

At the end of the process, we usually ask for three references. This step helps confirm what the team has already seen and adds context that interviews can’t always provide, especially around collaboration, ownership, and consistency over time.

The most useful references are people who worked closely with you and can speak to concrete examples. Think of your previous direct managers and main stakeholders. 

Step 7: Offer

When skills, motivation, and expectations align, the process moves to an offer.

By then, the most important questions should be answered on both sides, with mutual confidence in the fit.

We are building for the long term

At JetBrains, hiring isn’t something we do casually, as the people we hire today will influence our products for years to come. We’re looking for engineers who care about their craft, ask thoughtful questions, and want to build things that matter.

For you, this also means the process is an invitation to be intentional – to reflect on your experience, your motivations, and the kind of work that genuinely excites you. The strongest interviews happen when both sides are thoughtful, prepared, and honest about what they’re creating – and why.

This is how we build teams that trust each other, products developers rely on, and careers that grow over the long term.

Ready for your next engineering challenge?

Explore our open roles and see where you can help shape the tools developers use every day.