Synapse Product Development Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

After I applied, HR contacted me within a week and set up a phone screening a few days later. The application also required a coding sample and I could submit a writing sample. The phone screening was straightforward. I had to solve an online coding problem with a Senior Software Engineer. It involved finding the center of gravity in an array and I used a simple brute force approach. We then talked about optimizing it and its time complexity. They called me the next day to schedule an in-person interview for the following week. I drove to their Seattle office, got a tour, and had a 2-hour interview split into two parts. The first hour was with a team of engineers, including the one from the phone screen. The second hour was with two other engineers who turned out to be project leads. Both parts followed a similar format: conceptual questions on big topics, like drawing layers in a real-time embedded system, and a coding problem. The first coding problem involved 2D array convolution, which I solved easily with a basic method, noting the optimal solution without coding it. The second was a simple stack implementation. They also asked about my past projects and challenges I'd faced, especially those specific to small embedded systems. I interviewed on Wednesday, and HR aimed to give me feedback by Friday. However, due to scheduling conflicts, they called on Monday afternoon with a verbal offer. The whole process took just under 3 weeks.

First, I had to email a code sample, which is always a bit iffy because the requirements aren't super clear. Then, there was a phone chat. It was weird because the interviewer didn't ask about my background or tell me about the job at all. After a quick hello, they immediately jumped into a technical problem. They used an online whiteboard thing, and I had to code while they watched and we talked on the phone. It was a short function, maybe 50 lines. I made a couple of small mistakes (like using '=' instead of '+='), mostly because I don't usually code in that kind of setup. The interviewer ended the call pretty quickly and basically said they weren't interested. Honestly, the whole thing felt unrealistic and superficial.

I had a phone call with an HR person that lasted about 40 minutes. We mostly talked about behavioral questions and my past experiences. After that, I had to do a coding challenge on HackerRank (C, C++) and then a technical interview.