HomeLight Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The technical part wasn't too tough, involving an architecture interview, a coding test, and a brief coding session with the CTO. What really soured the experience was having over 7 interviews for one process at Homelight. The technical interviews were first. After finishing them and feeling confident, I moved on to interviews with managers from different teams. The managers seemed to think I did well technically. However, no offer was extended, and I was told my coding style wasn't a good fit for the team. Honestly, if that was the main reason, they could have saved me 5 interviews.

The interview process was a bit unusual. The first interview was quite late for me, happening after 10 PM my time. It was a technical interview that focused on my past experience, asking about what I've accomplished and my strengths and weaknesses. I had to reschedule the interview, but it was for the interviewer, not me. I didn't get clear feedback afterwards, so I'm rating it as neutral.

The whole thing took about a month, but you could probably wrap it up in two weeks if you had to. First, you have a chat with a recruiter to see if you're a good fit. Then, you chat with an Engineering Manager. After that, there's a pair programming exercise and a system design exercise. Finally, you'll chat with the Director of Engineering and a Product Manager. HomeLight puts a lot of effort into this part from their side, and all the interviews, including the exercises, are really conversational. The team is really open about selling the company and culture, and they're just as interested in that as they are in evaluating you. It was a great interview experience, way better than other places where the engineers interviewing me didn't even work for the company (like they were outsourced).