Curalate Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process started with a Skype call with someone from HR to discuss the job and company basics, which was pretty relaxed. Then, I had a technical phone interview with an engineer where we discussed data structures, and I was given a coding question. The data structure questions were standard, and the coding question involved finding array intersections, which was quite easy. Scheduling the onsite was messy; the office manager didn't book flights and was unresponsive, leading to the interview being rescheduled a week later. The onsite consisted of three interviews covering typical behavioral questions, some coding problems, and a system design question. I felt good about my performance, thinking I nailed everything. However, I was later informed I wouldn't receive an offer, with the reason given as needing more experience, which felt like a poor screening earlier on. Additionally, the promised reimbursement for travel expenses never materialized despite multiple follow-ups.

The interview process involved a recruiter call, followed by a call with an engineer. Then, I traveled for an on-site visit which included four interviews with engineers. The final interview was with the CTO via Skype. While the recruiters and HR team did a great job with scheduling and coordination, the overall process was quite lengthy, taking six weeks and involving seven interviewers from HR to the engineering team and the CTO. This felt longer compared to other companies where interviews might be back-to-back. The office space in Seattle wasn't as impressive as expected for a startup. Despite the length and some potential for rejection after a long process, the tech questions were fair, and the on-site interviewers were friendly.

I applied after talking to someone at a career fair at my university. The first step was a phone interview where they asked some pretty easy programming questions and also asked about my resume. They got back to me quickly and invited me to their HQ in Philly, and it was easy to pick a date and set up travel. The onsite was made up of 3 interviews that covered front end/general programming, algorithms/data structures, and object-oriented design. Everyone I met was professional and knew their stuff, and they really liked talking about their business and technology. Even though I felt pretty good about how I did, I got an email about a week later saying they'd hired someone else who they thought did better on the design part.