StackAdapt Data Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I had a quick initial phone screen with HR over Google Meet, where HR's camera was off. I did a brief self-introduction, then HR asked four basic technical questions. They seemed rushed and explicitly stated that all questions needed to be answered correctly, as I had missed the first two. The call wrapped up in under 10 minutes, suggesting they quickly filtered out unqualified candidates. The overall experience felt impersonal; no details about the role were shared, and my background wasn't discussed. While I hoped for more engagement, the brief call likely saved time for everyone.

This company has one of the best interview experiences, despite my performance in the second round not being optimal due to external factors. They value candidates' time and move swiftly in their decision-making, whether it's advancing you or rejecting you. The interviewers are generally friendly, and I enjoyed talking with them.

CTO Yang Han called me and spent the first 15 minutes asking about my previous experience. Then he asked me an algorithm question over the phone and started to drill me, which honestly gave me a serious headache. I tried to answer to the best of my abilities but knew I wasn't on the right path. I'm a Data Engineer with 8+ years of experience in writing scalable applications, APIs, designing ETL pipelines, and so on. I don't sit and solve these programming questions in my head every day. Forget everyday, for me it's a rarity even in months. Seriously, you called for an interview after reading my resume, and now you want to make sure I know computer science basics? How about if I ask you a random CS algorithm question and expect you to give me all the right data structures, runtime complexity, etc., in 15 minutes? Afterwards, another recruiter reached out to me and asked me about StackAdapt. I told them about my experience, and the recruiter said the CTO isn't experienced in taking interviews. Luckily, I don't have to work for him. If you need good candidates, first learn to treat them with respect. I'm all for these trivia-type questions but only to a certain extent because you need a lot of luck to get it correct. I'm the kind of person who might get it 60-70% correct off the top of my head. But these guys want 100%. And keep in mind, none of that is actually related to the job responsibilities. And if it is, guess what, you'd be better off hiring 3rd-year students from universities.