Alma Software Engineer interviews, decoded.

Had a few rounds, starting with a recruiter call, then a behavior round, a DSA round, and a system design round, followed by a team meeting. I only made it to the behavior round and wasn't selected to move forward, but it was a pretty standard interview loop.

The interview process started with a recruiter screen. Then, there were 3 interviews over 2 days: one coding, one values, and one system design. I did great on the coding and values interviews. I think I did okay on the system design, but I got rejected a few days later because I missed one small detail or answered one question incorrectly. I appreciate them telling me the reason for rejection, but it felt weird to be rejected for a small mistake after acing two out of three interviews.

So, I had 5 interviews. First was a coding challenge, it was with 2 engineers and was super easy. Then there was a frontend architecture interview where we talked about a design and how I'd build it code-wise and semantically. After that, I interviewed with the hiring manager, asking about soft skills and a project I'd done. Then I had a behavioral interview with the product team members. Lastly, I met with the CTO, which felt mostly like a formality, a chance for me to ask any remaining questions I had about the company and engineering.