Codecademy Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Got referred internally. First, there was a recruiter phone screen, then a hiring manager screen. After that, I had a take-home project where I could choose between API or UI. Then, a 3-part virtual onsite: a frontend coding challenge (opposite of take-home), followed by an engineer asking about a React project and a backend take-home assignment, along with discussing backend architecture and design. Another engineer didn't go over the backend take-home, mentioning the system design question takes a lot of time. They asked me to design a system for Educators, Students, and Parents, including models, API calls, and pseudo-UI descriptions. Finally, a second interview with the hiring manager and another engineering manager from a different team, which was a behavioral interview. I was auto-rejected without feedback, which is ironic given their values.

I reached out to a recruiter, who was on vacation, but passed me to another recruiter via his out-of-office reply. They were really accommodating with my scheduling needs and got me in quickly since I had an exploding offer deadline, even giving me feedback the same day as the onsite. I was hesitant because of past internship interview experiences with Codecademy, but they've really improved their process. It started with a recruiter call to confirm my interest in improving the company and its mission. Then, we had a typical coding phone screen, a big improvement from past trivia-based screens. The onsite was where they excelled. After a tour of their cool office space, we went to a conference room for programming interviews, an architecture interview, a management/personality interview, a product/team-fit interview, and a culture screen, with lunch in between. The culture screen was unexpected but fun; they focus on how you handle unexpected situations and if you seek feedback to improve.

The first phone screen was great for learning about Codecademy and its future plans. Then there's a technical screen handled by an external company. You'll answer several small technical questions and solve a problem while being video recorded the whole time. The questions cover programming language basics and fundamentals. You'll also be given a code snippet and asked to find what's wrong and how to correct it. The main programming question is challenging. Your video and code are sent to Codecademy for review. You can retake the interview within 24 hours, and both recordings will be reviewed by Codecademy. I found the technical phone screen to be a bit impersonal, and being recorded felt awkward. I would have preferred to work on a problem with a future colleague, as that would give a better sense of the technical culture.