NewsCred Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

We started with a recruiter call, which was non-technical, mostly to get to know each other. Next up was a technical interview where I had an hour to build a basic hotel booking system. They then grilled me on my code and my general approach, plus I had to solve some coding problems and talk about the algorithms and their time complexities. The final round involved meeting the VP of Engineering and other engineering leaders. We talked about my current role, and they threw some abstract system design and OOP questions at me, along with design pattern queries. It was the last technical part, but sadly I didn't get the offer. Still, it was a good learning experience overall.

I had a face-to-face interview with two engineers. It felt really unprofessional and immature. One interviewer was hostile from the start. Since I don't have a CS or SE background, I was asked how I got into programming. I mentioned online courses from college. He then lectured me for fifteen minutes, saying my basics were poor and I needed a lot of work, suggesting online courses weren't enough and I should focus on articles and open source. This was despite my 2.5+ years of experience and open source work, and it being a long time since I took an online course. I didn't argue because it seemed pointless. A couple of months later, I got a job at a much bigger company for double the salary, where my skills weren't questioned.

The interview process started with a 10-minute phone screen where we mostly discussed the company and its culture. After that, I was invited for an in-person interview. This consisted of meeting with two software engineers, where we delved into technical topics like data structures and whiteboard problems. Finally, I met with the VP of R&D to talk about my resume and past experience. I believe there will be a background check and then an offer.