LiveIntent Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

It started with a phone screening, mostly questions about my experience. Then I had a call with one of the company's engineers where I had to solve an algorithmic problem. I didn't finish it in time, but the interviewer said it's fine and I could email my solution later. After that, there was an onsite interview with two main parts. One part was with two managers, discussing company goals and my future plans. The other part was a technical interview, similar to the first one, where I had to solve a puzzle. It went okay until one interviewer stopped me, saying my approach wouldn't work. I tried another solution, but they said that wouldn't work either after just a couple of sentences, without explaining why, just telling me to find another solution, even though I thought mine was correct. I then came up with another idea that seemed better, and this time the interviewer didn't stop me immediately, but after a few sentences, they again said I was on the wrong track and needed to start over. It was frustrating, but I finally managed to solve the puzzle. After that, they asked some general technical questions. Overall, the onsite technical interview felt really hostile, negative, and almost offensive.

The first round was a technical and culture interview. They asked about OOP, REST vs SOAP, and MVC. The second round was a phone interview with the Software Architect, covering my resume, design patterns, toughest bug, and common issues from my last job. The third round, an on-site interview, never happened. The recruiter said the team was interested and asked for my availability, but then stopped responding despite my follow-ups.

So, the company reached out to me to apply. First up was a recruiter call, a standard chat about my experience and general stuff. The recruiter mentioned they were pretty flexible and as long as you knew the basics of Software Engineering, they'd help you pick up things like Scala. About a week later, I had a technical test. Turns out, they weren't really looking for a Senior Software Engineer, but more of a Scala expert, even though they had my resume and knew my Scala experience was limited. No questions about design choices, tools, or software design considerations. It was basically a pointless whiteboard session to see if I knew all the language's quirks. The interviewer was really condescending, almost rude, especially after I told him I wasn't expecting this kind of interview based on what the recruiter said. I heard back the same day – they weren't moving forward with me.