Tapad Interview Questions
& Process

So I interviewed in October through December 2020, all remote. It was a pretty standard software engineering interview process. Started with two informal screening chats. The second one had a quick coding question, nothing too tricky. Then I got a take-home coding project that I had a week to complete. It was a pretty interesting problem and the recruiter was clear about what they expected. A senior engineer was available for questions. After that was the final interview, which was a half-day thing with several parts. The recruiter laid out the plan beforehand. First, we spent an hour discussing the take-home project, which was a bit tough to gauge the feedback. Then, another coding challenge, more in-depth than the first. I solved it fast, and we even explored an alternative solution together. They asked about the computational complexity of both, which I couldn't answer. Next up was a simple system design 'whiteboarding' session. The virtual tools weren't great, but the interviewer was clear and encouraged me to make assumptions and ask questions. After that, I talked with a machine learning engineer lead, which was cool, but we didn't have enough time to cover my experience and the role. We ran over. Finally, I met with the engineering manager, who was really impressive. Despite some early hiccups with the take-home and coding questions, the interview finished on a positive note.

The interview started off well with a recruiter call where we discussed the company, the role, and the interview process, along with my background and what I'm looking for. Next, there was a live coding interview via video conference, which was pretty standard. I managed to solve the problem, and we had a brief chat about the interviewers' jobs and their projects. After that, I was told I'd get a take-home assignment to build a REST API for high-scale systems, and that only the main coding part was important. I ended up creating a fully functional micro-service, complete with high-throughput testing and robust persistence for both scale and durability. The plan was to have a review session for the assignment with an engineer from Tapad. Unfortunately, I didn't hear back for about two weeks. When I finally did, it was a generic email saying they'd moved forward with other candidates. It's pretty disappointing to have invested time in a take-home project only to receive no specific feedback, especially when they could have at least had a quick call to discuss it, even if they decided to go with someone else.

I first encountered Tapad at a university career fair, where I had a great conversation with a data scientist. A week later, a recruiter reached out about the Summer Internship Program, suggesting I apply based on my background. The hiring process was quite smooth, and the HR team was very responsive and helpful. I went through two technical phone interviews with different Data Science team members. These involved discussing my past experience and projects, along with some technical questions covering math and machine learning concepts. Soon after the second phone interview, I was invited to their NYC office for onsite interviews. The recruiter was very friendly and gave me a tour. I then had three 30-45 minute interviews with the two data scientists from the phone screens and the VP of Data Science. These interviews included more technical questions and a coding exercise. I really enjoyed the discussions with the team, and the technical questions were engaging, feeling more like a conversation than a traditional interview. After the winter break, I received a call with an offer for the summer internship program.

The interview process at Tapad could be improved. It took several weeks to schedule an interview after the initial phone screening due to the recruiter not responding to follow-up emails. During the in-person interview, I only met with two out of the three scheduled interviewers, which is understandable given people's busy schedules. However, what was particularly off-putting was being told I should come back to meet the third person, and then after reaching out to the recruiter to arrange this, weeks passed with no response. Finally, the recruiter contacted me to say they were passing on my application because they sought someone with more experience. This was handled unprofessionally; I would have preferred a fair opportunity to meet everyone I was supposed to. Although I accepted another offer, Tapad's handling of the process left a negative impression, and I won't be applying for future roles there. My advice is to hire recruiters who are responsive and professional.