Engine Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process
Real candidates share what happened, how many rounds they had,
and how the experience turned out.
Based on 12 interview experiences · FREE TO READ
Candidate interview experiences
First-hand accounts from people who interviewed at Engine.
Engine
Software Engineer
Senior Average Negative experience No offer 4 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Take home Technical screen Onsite Background check
Interview formats
Coding System Design Behavioral
I was contacted by a recruiter on LinkedIn and had an initial meeting to discuss the role and process. Then I got a Hackerrank test with 2 hard questions, 'Reduce the string by removing K consecutive identical characters' and another about particles, with only 1 hour to complete both. I managed to finish one, and they accepted it. Next were 3 technical interviews: a live coding exercise to format a list/array based on input and rules, a system design interview focused on DB table structure and pseudocode for financial operations (money withdrawal, transfer, history) and race condition prevention using concepts like pessimistic locking and 2-phase commit, and a project retrospective with an engineering manager where I had to present a project I was proud of, detailing its results and challenges. After the final interview, I was ghosted and received no feedback. My emails to recruiters went unanswered. Many others complain about being ghosted, so it seems to be a company culture issue.
Confirmed questions4 questions
- Reduce the string by removing K consecutive identical characters.
- Do an interactive coding exercise where you format a list/array output based on an input array and some output rules.
- Specify how you would structure your DB tables and pseudocode for a money withdrawal, money transfer and transaction history operations, and how you would prevent race conditions in the DB for those scenarios, mentioning things like pessimistic locking, 2-phase commit, ACID properties, etc.
Engine
Senior Software Engineer
Senior Difficult Positive experience No offer 3 rounds
Interview process
Technical screen Onsite Recruiter call
Interview formats
Coding System Design Behavioral
The process was fast. The interviewers were all really nice and understood that English isn't my first language. I felt like I understood the interview well, but I think my nervousness impacted my performance.
Confirmed questions3 questions
- Did the CTO complete coding?
- Did the CTO complete system designs?
- Was there a manager meet?
Engine
Software Engineer
Mid Average Negative experience No offer 7 rounds
Interview process
Recruiter call Technical screen Take home Technical screen Onsite Panel Presentation Background check Offer
Interview formats
Behavioral Technical Coding System Design Presentation
A recruiter reached out on LinkedIn about the role. She talked about the company hiring Brazilians and paying in dollars, which she really pushed. We scheduled a call with her and another recruiter. We discussed the company and my background, and they asked some technical questions, checking for keywords like ACID transactions. They mentioned the whole process would take 2-3 weeks and include an online test on HackerRank, then a live coding test by a third party, a system design interview, a team review, and a session to discuss my past projects and solve a system design problem with engineers. It seemed like a lot for 3 weeks. Anyway, the recruiter who first contacted me ghosted me and never replied, despite my follow-ups. They also use a recording tool during interviews without asking, which is uncomfortable.
Confirmed questions1 question
- Can you explain what ACID transactions are in the context of databases?
Engine Software Engineer Interview Questions
Quoted word for word from Engine interview reports.
“Build a React project using the GitHub API.”
Read reports →“Can you explain what ACID transactions are in the context of databases?”
Read reports →“Could you explain the advantages and disadvantages of using database indexes?”
Read reports →“Do you understand database indexes?”
Read reports →“Can you explain DB transactions, the drawbacks of DB indexes, and how to avoid race conditions when writing to a database?”
Read report →“Did the CTO complete system designs?”
Read report →“Was there a manager meet?”
Read report →“Did the CTO complete coding?”
Read report →“Are you familiar with design patterns?”
Read report →Formats, difficulty and experience
Across all 12 Engine interview reports.