Shelf Engine Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview started with a phone screening about the company and myself. Then I had an interview with an engineer where we talked about the team and role, followed by a live coding exercise. After that, there was a panel with two engineering managers, a software engineer, and a product manager. The engineer interviews were an hour each, with behavioral questions in the first half and a coding exercise in the second. The coding problems were similar to LeetCode easy/medium. The PM interview was shorter, 30 minutes. Before the panel, I got a document about the company's data and challenges, though I wasn't asked specific questions from it. The final step was a 30-minute chat with the CTO. The whole experience was really positive, with friendly interviewers who seemed enthusiastic about their work. The interview style suggested they value culture and not just coding output. My recruiter was very helpful and kept me updated.

It took about 3 weeks. First was the usual recruiter call, just chatting about my job desires. Then a technical screening with an engineer, a simple question about validating UPC numbers, lasted an hour. After that, I had a 4-hour virtual panel. The first interview was with a project manager and was purely behavioral. The rest were a mix of behavioral and technical. The technical parts were pretty easy, no need for intense LeetCode prep, easier than even Easy problems. One tech part built on the UPC question, which was a good collaborative interview. A few days later, I had a 30-minute interview with the head of engineering. It was behavioral questions, but I was rejected afterwards for no clear reason. Pretty standard experience overall.

The interview process was fully remote. I got a phone call from the recruiter and she scheduled me to have a technical interview with one of their software engineers. The interviewer was late, so we started late and they mentioned we didn't have a lot of time. The interviewer asked about my work history, cutting me off midway through my second job experience to ask about my current experience instead. Then we moved to the technical part where I was asked questions. We ran over the allotted time, but the interviewer said they still had time to answer my questions about the position. After my second question, they cut me off again because they had to go to another meeting. This was the entire process. Despite being cut off and rushed, I didn't feel pressured or scrutinized, which was a nice change from other technical interviews. I felt like they either already had someone in mind for the job or didn't take me seriously as a candidate.