My interview loop spanned multiple stages over the course of several weeks. First was the recruiter screen—pretty straightforward. They asked about my background, why I was looking for a new job, and what salary I had in mind. Nothing fancy, just alignment on basics.
The technical phone screen came next. I got a LeetCode medium problem with a few follow-ups that really pushed me to think about optimization and my decision-making. The interviewer wasn't just looking for a working solution; they wanted to see how I approached tradeoffs and edge cases.
The pair programming round stood out because they had me debug actual code from their codebase rather than tackling another abstract problem. That felt much more grounded and closer to what I'd actually do on the job.
For the virtual onsite, I had four separate rounds. First was a code review where I examined code, spotted issues, and suggested improvements. Then a hiring manager conversation more focused on behavior and culture fit. The system design interview was the most demanding—a hard problem that really tested my ability to think through tradeoffs, architectural decisions, and communicate my reasoning clearly. A final behavioral interview wrapped things up.
What struck me was how much weight they placed on communication and reasoning, especially in that system design round. They valued clear thinking about tradeoffs over having the one "right" answer. That actually helped me perform better because the pressure to be perfect was off.
I received an offer.
Prep tip from this candidate
Prepare hard system design questions with emphasis on trade-offs and architectural reasoning—they value clear thinking over the 'right' answer. Expect pair programming focused on debugging real codebase, not LeetCode problems.
