Kuali Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So I had a good impression of Kuali from reviews, sounded like a good place. But after interviewing, I have a very negative impression and wouldn't have accepted an offer. Interviewing is a two-way street, but Kuali's process really prevents you from getting to know them or the team members, beyond their website. They're obsessed with coding challenges, to the exclusion of other parts of the process. I've seen one or two before, but never four (1 offline + 3 live) for one role! The coding problems dominated everything. Each video session started with 'tell me about yourself,' but they seemed uninterested and just wanted to get to the coding. I barely got to ask about the role. I like discussing team methodologies, but there was no chance for that. The challenges are designed to be impossible in the time given, and for me, they were poorly stated. The live challenges were verbal, and interviewers seemed to forget important details, like they'd given them so many times they didn't realize what they hadn't said. We never touched on anything besides coding – no debugging, documenting, refactoring, unit testing, ticket management, scoping, or prioritizing. That's maybe okay for entry-level, but this was a senior role. It felt like a red flag, reminding me of dysfunctional workplaces with intimidation-based interviews. Unless they seriously reform their process, I won't apply again and will discourage others from applying.

I sent in my application online in July and then totally forgot about it until the CTO reached out in mid-August. We set up our first phone chat, which went well. He asked about my current role, chatted about the company, and inquired about my interest in joining. He mentioned he had other candidates to see and asked for my patience. I followed up two weeks later. He apologized for the delay and sent over a coding challenge with 5 really interesting, everyday-problem style questions. After that, I had an in-person interview with him and a senior engineer. About 30 minutes was spent discussing my background, followed by a coding assessment where I had to identify errors in about 5 problems. The overall experience was great, and the interviewers were very approachable.

The interview process included a phone screen, a programming design assignment, and a technical interview. The phone screen was pretty generic, asking about background experience and the technologies you work with. The programming assignment was more focused on design than actual coding.