Passport Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was pretty standard, nothing too unusual. It involved some basic small talk, and the interviewers seemed competent. However, there wasn't much opportunity to connect with them.

So after I applied, they called me for a phone chat with the HR Manager a few days later. It was like a 30-45 minute talk about me, my work history, the company, and the job. Then, they sent me a coding task where I had to build a basic full-stack app. They were pretty chill about the deadline, letting me pick. I asked for two weeks because I was swamped. They checked my code and then set up an in-person interview about 4-5 business days after I sent it in, which was the next week. In that interview, I talked to the CTO, VP, Team Leads, and Senior Engineers for a technical part, and then with the VP of People Ops and Director of Product for a behavioral chat. All in all, it was a great experience, I always knew what was going on, and Passport was super helpful. The only sticky point was some email issues with my Gmail, which sometimes acted up with their HR system. If you don't hear back, try finding a Passport email on their site and follow up, maybe it was just email trouble. They did sort out the technical glitches with me though, so it wasn't a big deal.

Had an initial technical interview which was very simple, good for assessing an undergrad's basic programming knowledge. Then, there was a very long coding round where I had to implement an entire system using multiple languages for both frontend and backend, and deploy it on a cloud. I had to follow up for a rejection response, which felt like a delayed REST API response. While rejection is fine, not informing the candidate is not. NOTE: YOUR CODE COULD BE STOLEN, BE CAREFUL WITH SUCH TESTS. Be wary of interviewers asking for a full system implementation and demonstration. Technical depth can usually be assessed within 2 hours. If a rejection follows such a lengthy implementation with a generic response, it's possible the work was stolen. This interview felt similar to those lengthy tests. I usually don't write reviews, but this seems like a trend where companies exploit candidates' effort for free. This is mainly a warning for those asked for lengthy implementations and then left waiting for weeks. If you're skilled in many areas, be cautious, understand the full assessment scope upfront, and consider declining the company before investing your effort.