Carta Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So I had this interview for Software Engineer II, Fund Administration, and honestly it was the best rejection I've ever gotten. I had 6 interviews total, with 4 of them being part of a virtual onsite. The whole thing was pretty long and tough. The technical challenge itself wasn't super hard, but it was super time-consuming. I think there are different versions of it, but the one I got would've taken me way more than the 4 hours I was given, even for senior engineers. I sent in what I had at 4 hours, even though I knew I could've made it so much better with just 2 more hours, despite knowing the industry well. It felt like they were more focused on finding reasons *not* to hire you than reasons *to* hire you, which is fine but what's a red flag can be kinda subjective, especially for design stuff. On the bright side, the recruiters were amazing and really empathetic, even working around my schedule changes for the onsite. They even gave me a call to let me know I was rejected, instead of an email, and they gave me feedback when I asked for it, which I really appreciated. They were also super quick with communication, responding to my emails in hours. Before the onsite, the recruiter prepped me and made sure I had everything I needed. And the interviewers were some of the nicest people I've met in this industry, making the interviews feel more like casual chats, which is rare. When I asked them what they valued most at Carta, they all said 'people', and you could totally see it. Their candidate dashboard was also really clean and easy to use, which makes me think they care about the candidate experience. Overall, it's a great process that other companies should look up to.

My interview experience was quite negative. It began with an initial screening chat with both the recruiter and the hiring manager. After that, I was given a take-home coding assignment, which I dedicated a significant amount of time to complete. However, after I submitted it, I heard nothing back for about two weeks. When I followed up, they told me I'd performed well and that they wanted to proceed to the next stage. We sorted out the scheduling, but shortly after, I received an email stating they were no longer proceeding due to a change in their circumstances. The whole thing left me with a bad impression, mainly due to the poor communication, lack of clarity, and disregard for candidates' time.

The interview process kicked off with a hiring manager call, followed by a take-home programming assignment. Then, there was a virtual onsite that included 5 interviews: a review of the take-home project, a behavioral chat, a discussion with a product manager, a system design session, and a conversation with the director. Finally, a recruiter call wrapped things up. Each interview, except for the recruiter and PM talks, had two interviewers. I really liked this process. The take-home assignment was a much better way to assess technical skills than a timed coding exercise, which I think is flawed because it doesn't show true coding ability and forces you to write less-than-ideal code to finish on time. Plus, those timed tests can be ageist, not reflecting real-world experience in shipping production code. Carta's approach let me build something I was proud of, showing my skills effectively. Reviewing the take-home code during the onsite was also smart, offering a chance to discuss improvements and prove I did the work. Having multiple interviewers onsite also gave me a good feel for the engineering team, which is important since I'm also evaluating the company.