Calm Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

It took 3 months from initial contact with recruiting and the hiring manager until the interview process started. The interview itself was a 4-hour marathon, ending late on the East Coast with only one short break. It included standard checks for culture fit, a systems design discussion, an iOS knowledge test, and a live coding exercise. For the coding part, I was told by both recruiting and the interviewer to use whatever I normally use day-to-day. Since I hadn't set up a new project in a while due to working on legacy code, I looked up how to use Codable in Google. The interviewer got mad and said using Google wasn't okay, which was confusing given what I was told earlier. I struggled but mostly finished the project within the time limit. I sent a thank-you note with feedback since they were reviewing their process, and I also finished the coding exercise and sent it over. The team liked me, but one interviewer's negative reaction to the coding exercise situation meant no offer. This long process ended badly because of conflicting instructions.

I interviewed for a backend software engineer role at Calm, which was a really practical and fair process. It started with a recruiter call to go over the timeline and process. Then, there was a technical interview that focused on real-world problem-solving rather than abstract algorithms. If that went well, the next step was a virtual 'on site' round, since Calm is remote-first. This round included another technical coding interview, an architecture interview where I had to design a solution conceptually, and a meeting with my future manager. The recruiting team was very helpful throughout, providing info and support. The whole process from the first call to the offer was pretty quick, around 3 weeks, and I always felt informed about the next steps, like they valued my actual skills.

The interview had 3 steps: First, a recruiter phone screen, then a technical phone screen, and finally a virtual onsite. The onsite included a coding interview, a system design interview, and a behavioral/values interview. The whole thing went really smoothly. Recruiters and interviewers were engaged and responsive. The interview wasn't particularly hard.