Preply Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I had a bunch of interviews, starting with a recruiter call, then a tech screen, another tech interview, one with an Engineering Manager and Product Manager, and finally a culture fit interview. Everything seemed to go okay until the end. The recruiter told me I was getting an offer, but then they added a last minute "chat" with a director and another engineer. They didn't tell me it would be a behavioral interview, so I wasn't ready with my examples, and since I wasn't actively job hunting, I couldn't just make them up on the spot. They rejected me saying I lacked experience and excitement.

First, I had a quick chat with HR for less than 30 minutes to get acquainted and go over what's next. Then, I interviewed with the Engineering Manager. Finally, there was a tech interview with a Software Engineer where we talked about software engineering practices.

The interview process was pretty straightforward. It started with a recruiter screen, then a coding round, followed by a system design round, a hiring manager round, and finally a culture fit round. The recruiter screen focused on past experiences and general questions. The coding round involved one easy LeetCode problem (valid parenthesis) and a custom problem about building a task scheduler for Preply. For the system design round, I had to design a search functionality for Preply, covering aspects like query handling, parameters, pagination, and A/B testing. The hiring manager round consisted of standard behavioral questions about conflict resolution and handling negative feedback. The culture round required answering questions based on their principles. Even though I did well in all rounds, the team matching process was quite drawn out, taking almost three weeks and involving three different teams, and ultimately I wasn't a fit for any. Overall, the difficulty was easy and wouldn't require extensive preparation, but paying attention to the culture/behavioral rounds is key. The recruiter and team were very nice, and the recruiter did her best to ensure a positive experience.