Hungryroot Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So the interview had three main stages. First was a technical round, then a behavioral round that also touched on technical stuff, and finally a back-to-back technical/behavioral interview. My recruiter, T, got a lot of comments about seeming uninterested or catty, but honestly, I think they just have a lot to get through. I didn't find them unprofessional, just be ready to talk about your backend development skills. For me, it was a backend role. Overall, it was a pretty straightforward, efficient process, and everyone I met was friendly and professional. The main issue I had was the jump in difficulty between the first and second technical interviews; the second one was way harder than the first, maybe the hardest I've had in 12 years. I didn't have prep material, so it was tough. If you're an average developer or get stressed easily, you'll need to study for several hours, even if you use Django daily. I'm marking it as difficult, but that might not be true for naturally gifted developers or those who work a lot with complex Django queries. It felt harder than my FAANG interviews from years ago, probably because I prepped for those and not this one.

I was directly contacted by a recruiter about a Django engineer role. Although I'm currently a Django Principal Software Engineer and not actively job searching, I was interested because they mentioned they needed a Staff Engineer to mentor, lead a team, and assist with scaling, which fits my current experience. I agreed to interview with their engineers. The initial plan was a 1-hour interview with a Director and Senior SWE focused on Python/Django code quality, data structures, and algorithms. I spent my weekend prepping for Django-specifics. However, only one SWE showed up and gave me Leetcode-style questions and raw SQL tasks, which I found different from Django engineering and the usual Django tasks involving ORMs. They later rejected me, saying my experience wasn't aligned, prioritizing other candidates. I think live Leetcode questions are not inclusive and suggest alternatives like a Django-based take-home assignment for a better process.

I had a phone screening at first and it went well so they set up the next interview round. The second round was pretty basic, it started with some introductions and then a coding challenge. I'm not the best at leetcode style problems yet, but it takes practice. I took too long on the first question and ran out of time. I bet there was another coding problem after that. A few days later, I got an email saying I was rejected, probably because I took too long on the coding problems. Everyone was really nice though. It seems like a cool company, but 5 interviews in a month is a lot.