Attentive Software Engineer interviews, decoded.

Started with a recruiter chat about the job and my background, then dove into a live coding session and a system design part. The coding involved standard DSA problems of medium difficulty on a shared platform. The system design focused on building a scalable backend and discussed trade-offs. The interviewers were cool, gave me enough time to think. It was pretty much a typical senior SWE interview, nothing too crazy or special. Left feeling pretty neutral about it.

They ended up not offering me the job after 6 rounds, even though I thought I did well. They said they found someone with more specific experience. It was a pretty standard engineering interview process with 2 coding, 2 system design, and 2 behavioral rounds. Since they were only filling one spot, it was a bit of a gamble, and even if you performed well, they might pick someone with a background that fit the team's needs better. The recruiter kept in touch and was responsive, but I wish they had screened for the specific experience earlier to avoid wasting everyone's time and causing disappointment.

They cancelled my final interview with minimal notice twice. The first time they said they filled the role. Then, they reached out and said a new role was available. Scheduled the final for one week later, and they notified me the night before that they had decided to close the role. Don't waste your time here