SoundCloud Interview Questions
& Process

We'll start with a quick hello and some casual chat to get comfy. Then, I'll give you a rundown of our company and this specific job. After that, you'll tell us about yourself – your experience, what you're good at, and why you're keen on this role. We'll dive into some questions about your background and skills, and maybe even a quick practical task or technical question. You'll get a chance to ask us anything about the company, the team, or what happens next. Finally, we'll wrap up with some closing thoughts and info on the next steps.

The process started with a recruiter screen, then a technical exercise, followed by an interview with the hiring manager where we discussed the technical exercise and my background in relation to the role. Finally, there were three interviews with key stakeholders from different departments. It was a well-structured and efficient process.

The interview process was very concentrated and fast, which I found really positive. There were 3 rounds in total, involving an HR/Hiring Manager round, a case study round, and peer interviews. This amounted to 6 1:1 interviews plus one panel case that had several days for preparation. The case study involved either discussing a past product I worked on or structuring a new product from scratch, with product peers as the audience. Everyone I met was super friendly and open about the company. One area for improvement would be more transparency about the specific goals of each interview, as it wasn't always clear what was being evaluated. On a less positive note, the recruiting team's delivery of the rejection message was drawn out, spending 15 minutes on feedback before stating no offer would be extended. It felt unnecessarily tense. However, they did follow up on my request to share the feedback again, which was quite useful and appreciated.

Applied for the Full Stack Engineer role at SoundCloud in early January and had a terrible experience. About a week later, received an email with a Calendly link for the first interview. I selected a time and did some research on their tech stack beforehand. However, 30 minutes before the scheduled time, I got an email stating the interviewer had an emergency and would reschedule for the evening. They also misspelled my name. I agreed to reschedule and heard nothing for a couple of days. I followed up and received another Calendly link. I attended the rescheduled interview on time, but no one joined the online meeting. I waited a few minutes and sent an email to confirm, but received no response. I stayed in the meeting for 30 minutes hoping someone would show up, but they didn't. I sent another email for an explanation, but as expected, got no reply. I would not recommend wasting your time with SoundCloud.