Deliveroo Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process started with a recruiter call, which went well. After that, I got an online coding test. I feel like these online tests are a way for companies to save effort and make candidates do the work. For experienced people like me, these tests don't really show what you can do or if you're a good fit. They often test how well you can take tests, not how well you build things. This shows they're focused on filling slots fast rather than finding good senior engineers. Good companies spend time talking to you about real problems and how you'd solve them, not just coding puzzles. I want to work somewhere that respects my experience and sees me as a person, not just another number in their hiring process.

The interview process is pretty straightforward. You first need to pass an online assessment (OA). After that, you'll be invited to the final rounds, which consist of two main parts: a coding round and a system design round. For the coding round, there's a take-home task where you have to design a cron parser. During the interview, you'll briefly explain your design and then code up some extensions for it. Make sure your code is designed to be easily extended with features like cyclic notation, an optional year, day/month names, command arguments, and showing the next 'n' occurrences. You can find examples online. The system design question involves designing a system for a marketing campaign giving away 6,000,000 free burgers in 10 minutes, with one burger per account. Focus only on the campaign aspect, assuming users are already logged in and you don't need to worry about payment or delivery. Key areas to cover are the end-to-end data flow, failure modes, observability (how to monitor before and during the event, potential bottlenecks, and solutions), tradeoffs, voucher tracking, handling duplicate claims, and ensuring the system is robust. Be aware that the interviewers, especially for system design, have a mixed reputation, and some comments suggest they might not be the best. It's advisable to use this interview as practice for more critical interviews elsewhere, as the company has a reputation for being toxic and might face more layoffs after the Doordash acquisition. There's also a behavioral round, which is usually simple, but again, be cautious of potentially toxic interviewers who might downlevel you or reject you unfairly. Many stories exist about unfair rejections. If you're lucky, you might pass easily. Overall, it's an easy process and good practice, but the system design part and its interviewers can be frustrating. Research the company culture on Glassdoor and Reddit, and talk to current/former employees; Deliveroo might not be the ideal place to work. The salary is also lower than FAANG companies, and it's a hybrid work model.

The interview process at Deliveroo had four parts. First, there was a Meet and Greet with HR where we talked about my past work. Then, a Technical and Business Round happened, which was a really good chat with the interviewer; they were chill and we got along well. After that, I had to submit a code assignment to HR. The last part was an Architecture Round focusing on secure design and best practices, and then a live coding session with follow-up questions on my submitted code. Even though I got rejected, I was super impressed when I asked for feedback. The HR did a video call with me and gave really detailed feedback on every round, pointing out what I did well and where I could improve. I've never had an HR do that before, and I really liked their approach.