Secure Code Warrior Interview Questions
& Process

Applied online and pretty quickly got an email from their internal recruiter with a list of interview times, but they were all for 12:00-2:00 AM. I had to follow up for almost 2 weeks to get better times. The call was pretty quick and casual, but the recruiter was really nice and clearly knew a lot about the company and the job. I was told I'd get feedback the same day, but I had to email them a few times. About a week later, I was finally told by email that they were only moving forward with candidates in London (I'm about 200 miles away).

After some initial recruiter chats, there were 3 main interview stages. The first was a 'Get to know you' round with general questions, mostly focusing on what's on my resume. The second stage was a technical challenge: a live coding part, followed by a system design question. It was a standard task of getting data from APIs and processing it. I had to optimize the code and write some tests. They were really open to discussing during the challenge, which was nice. The third stage had more specific questions, asking for concrete examples from my past projects and experience with particular technologies.

The interview process involved three separate interviews, each lasting 2-3 hours. The final interview was a pair coding session, supposedly with the founders. This was by far the most humiliating interview I've ever experienced. For an ASSOCIATE role, the questions in the penultimate and final interviews were significantly more difficult than typical coding questions. During these, the interviewers remained completely silent while I attempted to work through problems and ask for clarification, which was incredibly stressful. The whole experience felt unprofessional, and it seemed like they were seeking a senior engineer at a junior engineer's salary. Even if an offer were extended, I would not accept it given the unprofessional and ego-driven environment, which likely wouldn't allow for growth.

Had a great chat with the senior talent acquisition partner who was super knowledgeable about the role and the process, and really seemed to care. Then talked to the head of customer service about customer service and experience stuff. After that, it was a 'technical' interview with the head of content, though it felt pretty casual for the role. Next up, I met with the head of customer success and an engineer from the team. Wrapped things up with a casual chat with the CEO about my experience, what I'm passionate about, and my future plans.