Tapad Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

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 applied at the career fair and got an email for an on-campus interview the next day. It was a 30 min interview with one technical question. This was followed by an on-site interview that had 4 45min rounds. In the last round after the technical question, the SVP of Engineering explained the business and technical sides of the company in more detail. I had a flight back right after the interviews and I already had a response from them waiting in my inbox as I landed. Every single interviewer I spoke to was helpful and encouraging. They won't put you in a spot if you don't know the answer but instead try to guide to with hints and make you feel comfortable.

I applied to Tapad through Linkedin and a recruiter contacted me the next day to set up an initial phone interview. This involved a live coding exercise with some interesting problems and chances to ask questions. The interviewer let me know the positive outcome the same day and we scheduled a panel interview for the following week. This was a relaxed, collaborative interview with many questions that felt relevant to Tapad's work, not just tricky algorithms. The engineers I spoke with were enthusiastic about the role. The recruiter followed up the next day with an offer. The whole process, from application to offer, took less than two weeks and was done remotely over Zoom. The recruiter was communicative and responsive throughout, and I really enjoyed discussing the work with the engineers.