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How To Get A Job at Netflix

Last updated: Apr 5, 2023

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How Hard Is It to Get a Job at Netflix?

Where can you find netflix job opportunities, what do you need when applying for a job at netflix, what is netflix looking for in an employee, what does netflix’s hiring process look like, 1. recruiter phone call, 2. hiring manager phone screen, 3. on-site interview panel, 4. joining the team, what should i do if netflix doesn’t hire me.

Want to work at Netflix? Here are a few tips and insights you’ll need to know when applying for a job at Netflix so you have the greatest chance at getting hired.

With over 195 million paid memberships in 190 countries, Netflix is the world’s leading entertainment service by a long shot.

Churning out fresh, new content every week, they’ve changed the way the world watches television forever. Even so, Netflix would not be the company it is today without the thousands of people working tirelessly behind the scenes.

If you’re looking to join their team of streaming innovators, your chances may be higher than you think. With job openings in departments ranging from financial to communications, there is plenty of opportunity at Netflix.

Although the interview process is not for the faint of heart, getting hired to work for this entertainment industry giant is possible.

Here is everything you need to know about how to get a job at Netflix.

Let’s face it: Netflix has become a household name. It’s even a verb for some people. Is working for such a company a dream that you can entertain?

Of course! After all, Netflix didn’t take the top spot for the most coveted place to work just for their logo. If you’re interested in a position at one of their worldwide offices, don’t be afraid to go for it. Netflix encourages all potential hires to review their detailed company culture memo.

Taking the time to understand the company culture will help you see if you’ll be a good fit. If so, don’t wait to apply. You never know, Netflix may be your next home away from home.

The Org is a great place to start when looking for jobs at Netflix. Head on over to their jobs page to see an updated list of open roles, profile pages of the correct hiring manager, and where each team falls into the org chart.

To find all of Netflix's job opportunities, make sure to check their careers page to see where you might be a good fit. With hundreds of locations worldwide, the possibilities are endless.

To start searching, enter a keyword into the “search jobs” bar (manager, engineer, etc) and hit enter.
You can further narrow your search by adding Teams and Location filters.
Once you have your results, scroll through the listings until you find one that stands out to you.

If you’re not sure where to start, you can visit the Teams page to see a list of all the teams you can be a part of. Each page will give a brief overview of the team and provide a link to current job openings.

Netflix job openings aren’t limited to The Org or their website. Other job sites will have openings you can inquire about and apply for.

Netflix doesn’t explicitly state what is needed when applying for a job, but candidates can assume that a resume, cover letter, and references are needed.

While references and referrals are important, don’t rely on these to help you get the job. A former employee who name-dropped during his interview was promptly told that they only wanted to get his view of Netflix. Netflix is more interested in what you can bring to the table, than what others have to say about you.

What you need to succeed at Netflix is the right mindset. While your resume and cover letter may be impressive, they aren’t interested in only your technical proficiency.

A blog post on their website showcases nine Netflix employees who were hired without degrees. While some roles within Netflix do require a certain level of education, experience and dedication are valued much more than any piece of paper.

Netflix describes itself as having “an amazing and unusual employee culture.”

These five points give an overview of the company culture:

We encourage independent decision making by employees
Share information openly, broadly, and deliberately
Are extraordinarily candid with each other
Keep only our highly effective people
Avoid rules

Netflix is looking for employees who know their core values and culture memo through and through. Give attention to how you tell your story during the application process. Use language found in the culture memo throughout your resume and cover letter to stand out.

Netflix wants people who will come with questions and challenge their thinking. Keep in mind that they are known for their “hire slow, fire fast” mentality. They take their time searching for the best talent to bring on, and they have no issue letting go of underperforming workers.

They want someone who will consistently deliver high-quality work. Netflix is constantly changing for the better, so show them that you can roll with these changes — or better yet— make them yourself. If they see that you can solve their problems, you’re more likely to be hired.

Netflix’s hiring process will always begin with a recruiter phone call that lasts around 30 - 45 minutes. Before the call, you’ll be sent a copy of Netflix’s core values and company culture. Read this thoroughly and familiarize yourself with the language and culture before your interview.

During this call, you’ll be asked why you are interested in a role with Netflix and discuss where you currently are in your career. They’ll inquire about your experience and briefly ask about your skill set. The recruiter will ask questions about Netflix’s culture and other questions such as:

“What don’t you like about Netflix’s culture?”
“Why do you want to work at Netflix?”
“What past projects have you done that qualify you for this position?”

This second phone call will take place a few days or a week after your initial phone call. You will speak to a hiring or engineering manager who will ask you technical questions about your background and experience. This phone call will dive deeper into any technology or programming languages in which you are proficient. You may also be asked some questions about your resume and further behavioral questions relating to the Netflix culture.

An alternative to this phone call is a take-home project. You must complete this project within 6 to 8 hours. A sample taken project would be to build a microservice to calculate and edit the pricing of subscriptions based on rules given to you.

Netflix's on-site interview is broken into two parts. The first part will consist of four technical interviews where you’ll meet with members of the team. The second half is less technical. You will meet with members of human resources and other directors.

Applicants undergo four interviews lasting approximately 45 minutes. These interviews will vary from 1:1 and 2:1.

Be prepared to take on whiteboard challenges and questions that hone in on your talents and technologies. Expect to answer questions about algorithms, cultural fit, and data structures.

Even if the role you interview for isn’t technical, don’t be surprised if you’re asked brain teasers. While there is no right answer to these questions, hiring managers are curious about the way you think and problem solve.

Note: It’s important to keep in mind that if you don’t perform well in the first half, you won’t move on to the second half.

Second Half

The second half of the interview process consists of three 45- minute sessions. You will speak to human resources, the hiring manager, and the engineering manager. You can expect more behavior and culture focused questions from HR and the hiring manager, and technical questions from the engineering manager.

Expect to hear culture-focused questions such as:

“You have an idea for improving a product, but you’re nervous about stepping on a coworker’s toes. What do you do?”
“How would you work with a team on a hypothetical project?”
“Explain how you would interact with a very opinionated coworker.”
“Tell us about a time when you had to deal with difficult feedback and how you moved forward.”

Expect to be asked technical questions along the lines of the following:

“If Netflix is trying to expand its reach in Europe, what steps should be taken to evaluate the size of the European market and what should Netflix do to capture this market?”‘
“Who do you think is Netflix’s biggest competitor? Why?”
“What would you do to improve Netlfix’s streaming service?”

After your on-site interview, you should receive an offer from Netflix within 1-2 weeks. This gives them enough time to interview other candidates and draft up an offer letter.

When this offer is sent, the hiring manager will call you to discuss salary/stock options, start date, etc. Before your start date, you can check out their org chart to see who your team members are and how you’ll fit into the company.

If you don’t hear back within that time, you can assume that you didn’t get the position. If so, you will need to wait 6-12 months to apply again.

If you don’t end up landing a job with Netflix, don’t give up on finding the right position for you. Netflix encourages interviewees to apply again once their experience and skills have increased.

If you’d like to go in another direction, there are hundreds of online job listings you can choose from. A little effort and perseverance on your part will have you finding a job sooner than you think.

If you’d like to see where you might fit in in a potential company, check out their public org chart before applying. Click here to see more positions that may be perfect for you.

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The ultimate guide to getting a job at Netflix. We talked to its head of recruiting, former employees, and staffing experts to learn exactly what it takes to get hired in 2020.

Netflix is one of the most sought-after places to work in tech and media, and its employees are among the happiest out there.
We interviewed former Netflix employees, staffing experts, and the company's top recruiter to learn precisely what it takes to land a job at the streaming company in 2020.
To get a job, you must know Netflix's famed culture memo — and its current business priorities — inside and out, and be prepared to relate them to your own skills and experience.
"We're really looking for people who can help us with that scale and who want to live in a culture of freedom and responsibility and take risks," Valarie Toda, vice president of talent acquisition at Netflix, said.
We also broke down how to get noticed by Netflix recruiters, the interview process, and what to do if you don't get the job.
Click here for more BI Prime stories .

Netflix is hiring for hundreds of roles, from its headquarters in Los Gatos, California, to its outpost in Tokyo, Japan, and many offices in between, including its new space in Paris, France.

Even as media companies like Disney and tech giants like Apple push into streaming video, Netflix remains the No. 1 service in the world, and one of the most-sought after tech companies to work for. Its employees are also some of the happiest out there .

To staff up as it continues to expand, Netflix has amassed an army of around 200 recruiters globally, and moved most its talent-acquisition efforts in house in recent years.

Business Insider asked former Netflix employees, staffing experts, and the company's top recruiting exec, what it takes to land a job at the streaming company.

Here's what we found.

PART A: Do your homework on Netflix's business and culture first

1. read netflix's culture memo from start to finish.

If you ask someone at Netflix what they look for in job candidates, you'll probably hear a list of lofty attributes like "curiosity," "courage," and "selflessness."

Those aren't just platitudes to Netflix recruiters. These qualities are deeply ingrained into Netflix's culture, which is detailed in a more than 4,000-word culture memo on the streaming company's website. The document made waves when it was first released a decade ago because of elements of its management philosophy like its high-performance culture, lack of a formal vacation policy, and aversion to "brilliant jerks."

Some of those elements remain in the culture memo today. The company's 10 core values are: judgment, communication, curiosity, courage, passion, selflessness, innovation, inclusion, integrity, and impact.

If you're serious about getting a job at Netflix, you should know the culture memo inside and out. Be prepared to demonstrate how you exemplify those ideals at every stage of the hiring process.

"The No. 1 thing is read the culture memo," Valarie Toda, vice president of talent acquisition at Netflix, told Business Insider when discussing her advice for prospective candidates.

In the interview stage, for example, you'll likely be expected to give candid feedback, which ties into Netflix's communications and integrity values. The company hires on culture as much as it hires for skill.

One recent candidate was asked during an interview about how she might change specific features in Netflix's US product, Toda said. The candidate was from Mexico and suggested that Netflix should also ask about features from versions of its products outside of the US, since the company was trying to grow globally.

"It was amazing feedback and really showed that she had done research on our company, and she was trying to make us better," Toda said. "Come with questions, challenge our thinking."

While you're reading up on Netflix's culture, honestly reflect on whether it's right for you. With values like "communication" and "passion" also come candid feedback, and the expectation that workers should perform at the top of their fields. The Wall Street Journal in 2018 reported that Netflix's culture has also resulted in blunt and frequent firings.

"You don't do yourself a favor if you trick the interview system to get in," one former employee told Business Insider. "It's a really challenging place to work ... They don't just put it [culture deck] away when you get hired. It comes up all the time, in every meeting."

2. Get to know the business

Prospective candidates should get familiar with Netflix's business, too.

Netflix is a global company. Most of its members — more than 100 million of its 160 million subscribers — are now outside of the US, and its fastest growing regions are international, like its Europe, Middle East, and Africa region.

The streaming company also acts more like an entertainment business than a tech firm these days. It's spending billions more on programming than it is on technology.

"Get to know the business," Toda said. "Have a good sense of what content we're working on. There's lots of articles out there about what we're trying to accomplish."

Netflix has a "WeAreNetflix" account on LinkedIn, Twitter, and other social networks where it documents what its like to work at the streaming company. It also has a podcast where its execs and recruiters discuss what individual teams, like legal, are doing.

In 2020, scale is the name of the game.

"We're really looking for people who can help us with that scale and who want to live in a culture of freedom and responsibility and take risks and really push what we're trying to accomplish," Toda said.

Candidates can spin that in their favor by highlighting projects they've worked on that have made a big impact.

And if you're coming from a small company or startup, you could show your impact by emphasizing how broad your job responsibilities are, Toda said.

"There's a scrappiness factor there," she said. "You have the ability to work on different kinds of projects and have a really big, broad impact on those projects."

PART B: How to get Netflix's attention and score an interview

1. craft your story.

Landing a job at Netflix comes down to how you tell your story.

Craft your social profiles, resumé, or portfolio to showcase your skills, more than just your job titles. Netflix is known for making "unconventional hires" who may not have held the exact role they're hiring for before but have transferable skills for roles, company insiders said.

Netflix, for instance, hired a person on its globalization team — which helps tailor content for different parts of the world through subtitling, dubbing, and other methods — who had no experience doing that specific job.

"He's led large teams," Toda said. "He's worked at scale. And he knows how to get really large projects done. We thought that was more important than the specific industry skill."

Hiring managers also tend to focus on the dynamics of the team the candidate is applying for. Some job postings describe the existing members of the team . Read up, and think about what you could add.

"What new perspective are they going to bring?" Toda said.

Netflix recruiters like to see that you're passionate about the company and its values, too. That could be as simple as including a sentence in your email to a hiring manager or recruiter that says, "I'm really passionate about X value from your culture memo," or "My favorite Netflix shows are X, Y, Z."

"Show your passion for what the company stands for," Avi Mally, CEO of Three Pillars Recruiting, a firm that specializes in recruiting for digital-media companies, said.

2. Get into a recruiter's database

Like other tech companies, Netflix hosts community events that can be great opportunities to network with hiring managers, and get into a recruiter's database.

Its product engineering team, for example, is hosting an event in Los Angeles, California in early February that is open to anyone who registers online.

You can find out about these events by following Netflix's social channels, especially its "WeAreNetflix" handle. Netflix usually shares the details online, as do its employees.

3. Work your network

Netflix, like other companies, also relies on employee referrals to find rockstar recruits. About 15% of people on Glassdoor who said they interviewed at Netflix got the opportunity through employee referrals.

A recommendation from a current Netflix employee should, for the most part, get you a 30-minute call from a Netflix recruiter, former employees familiar with the process said.

Netflix confirmed that it values employee recommendations, but is most interested in finding the best person for each role, be it through referrals or other means.

The company does not have a formal referral program that offers bonuses or other perks for referring employees who get hired. ( It doesn't offer any bonuses. ) So job hunters seeking referrals from Netflix employees will have to show they're worth the energy.

One recruiting expert recommended crafting a pitch that's three paragraphs or less.

"Assume people are reading it on their phones," said the recruiter, who has worked with Netflix, and spoke under condition of anonymity. "More than three swipes up on your phone, it's too long. You should be able to tell somebody why you're reaching out and what you have to offer."

While recommendations can help candidates get a foot in the door at Netflix, name dropping won't help much in the interview and vetting process.

A referral will get the conversation started with Netflix. It won't land candidates the job.

One former employee said they brought up their referrer in the first recruiting call, and were quickly told that the call was about why they were interested in Netflix.

"If they do get a referral, I wouldn't use it as a crutch in the interview process," that person said. "Referrals do not generally work as well at Netflix as they do other places."

Insiders also recommended applying for openings through Netflix's website before requesting a referral. Netflix really does mine those online applications, the insiders said. The employee recommendations could go further if recruiters see the person who was referred has been actively applying and interested in Netflix.

Read more about using employee referrals to get hired at Netflix: How to get a job interview at Netflix with the help of employee referrals — and what to avoid doing, according to company insiders

PART C: How to ace the interview and follow up if you don't get hired

1. what to expect from the interview process.

The interview process at Netflix begins with a 30-minute phone call from a recruiter, who will want to know why you are interested in Netflix and the broad strokes of where you are in your career.

That's followed by a call with the hiring manager, who would be your boss if you get the job. Then comes an interview panel at Netflix's offices. Depending on the role, there may also be a technical or skills test at some point.

For the on-site interview, dress is business casual. But Toda said you should wear what makes you feel "confident" and ready for an "open and authentic dialogue."

If you feel best in a suit, you could forgo the tie for an open collar, Karen Danziger at the executive-search firm, Koller Search Partners, said. A pop of color also helps project confidence.

"We want to get to know you," Toda said.

During the on-site interview, you'd typically meet with four to eight people, including the hiring manager. The more senior the position, the more people you're likely to meet with, former employees said. Be prepared for at least half a day of interviews, the people said. Some candidates may be asked to come in multiple times to accommodate the schedules of top executives.

"It's a full day," one former employee said. "After I've seen them out, they just look exhausted."

Your interviewers may be taking notes during the panel, as well.

Netflix uses a recruiting software, called Lever, where interviewers can share feedback with the hiring manager during each round of the interview panel.

The interviewers also rate their recommendation on the candidate on a scale of one to four, one for "no," two for "leaning no," three for "leaning yes," and four for "yes," two former employees said. Other people involved in the candidate's interview process can also access this feedback, but it's not available to the candidate or employees more broadly, they said.

Netflix confirmed that it uses Lever to share feedback during the hiring process, but would not confirm the ratings system.

Hiring managers make the final decision on who to hire, after considering all the feedback from everyone involved in the hiring process.

2. Netflix's toughest interview questions tie back to its culture

Nailing a job interview at Netflix comes down to showing you would thrive in the streaming company's clearly defined culture.

One of Toda's favorite interview questions asks, "When was the last time that you gave direct feedback to your boss?"

It's meant to assess how comfortable candidates would be giving and receiving feedback and how they might handle conflict. Integrity and courage are two tenants of Netflix's culture. "You say what you think, when it's in the best interest of Netflix, even if it is uncomfortable," the memo says.

Employees are encouraged to regularly give feedback to other employees, including their bosses, all the way up to CEO Reed Hastings. People also routinely push back on ideas in meetings to make sure they've considered things from all angles before moving forward, insiders said.

But not every workplace is that open. Toda said one candidate crushed this interview question by simply admitting he had never given critical feedback to his boss before.

"I loved it because he said, 'I've never done it ... I've never been in an environment where I felt safe to do that,'" Toda said. "But then he also said, 'I read the culture memo and I know that I'm going to need to do it here. It's one of the reasons I'm interviewing, because I want to build that skill.'"

Read more about Netflix's toughest interview questions: Netflix's 5 toughest job-interview questions, according to company insiders

3. Stay in touch if you don't get the job

Netflix fielded 350,000 job applications in 2019, Toda said. By comparison, the company had fewer than 6,800 full-time employees.

It's a competitive company where even top applicants may not get hired.

Toda said not to get discouraged if you don't get hired the first, or even the second time, you interview at Netflix. One candidate interviewed at Netflix three different times before being hired.

His third time interviewing, he asked, "Why am I not being hired?" Toda said. "They had a really hard but really open conversation and we ended up hiring him."

One common reason a candidate may not be hired is that they may be applying for a managerial role and don't yet have enough management experience, she said.

"Keep in touch with us," she said. "Let us know as your career evolves."

Do you have questions, or tips, about working at Netflix? Email this reporter at [email protected] . Email for Signal number.