SimilarWeb Fullstack Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The team was really nice and seemed professional. Most interviews were online, but the last one was in person at their high-end office. They have great perks, but the office isn't close to the train.

This was by far the worst interview process I've ever been through. It started with a recruiter call, which set up a phone interview. When the scheduled time came, no one called. I emailed to find out why but got no response. A week later, the team leader called me, and we had a good chat about my personal background and work history. He was very upfront and honest. We then set up a meeting where I was asked questions about distributed systems synchronization. After that, I had a take-home assignment that involved learning a new software component and took a significant amount of time. Once I submitted it, things got weird. Two days later, I got a rejection email from HR. It was strange, so I messaged my interviewer to ask if my assignment wasn't good enough, as I was confident in my work and felt I deserved an explanation. He was surprised, hadn't reviewed it yet, and promised to look into it. A few days later, he messaged in the morning saying my assignment was fine and he'd request an interview. Great news! Two days passed with no call, so I messaged the interviewer for an update. That same day, I got a funny email from the company claiming they tried to reach me multiple times without success, which was odd given I was available all day and they had the correct number from our previous conversation. We then scheduled another interview via email, an HR interview for the next day. This interview was terrible. I have a lot of hi-tech experience. In one company, I had some issues with a new team leader and was honest about it when asked, as it wasn't a major issue, just a lack of chemistry. I regret being so open because some interviewers are looking for a perfectly clean record, even if the stories don't make sense. This HR person was one of them. For 40 minutes, I answered a barrage of foolish questions about that one issue, completely disregarding my extensive experience. The interview felt like an interrogation where she tried to pin the blame on me. After this unpleasant experience, I was rejected. While I understand companies want candidates with a clean history, they shouldn't waste candidates' time with numerous interviews and lengthy assignments.

At SimilarWeb, I had a really bad interview experience. Normally, interviews are polite conversations, but not here. Be ready to solve technical problems with only basic diagrams and figure out what the interviewer wants without any written instructions. Don't ask them to repeat themselves because they're busy eating, which apparently helps them think better. Also, expect the interview to end early, like 40 minutes sooner, after only 2 or 3 questions because they "got everything they needed".