Thought Machine Backend Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview had 3 parts: first a recruiter chat, then a take-home project, and finally an onsite interview. The onsite had 3 one-hour sessions: 2 were for LeetCode medium problems, and 1 was a discussion about the take-home project code. It was a good experience, the team was nice and professional. I didn't pass the onsite, but got feedback a week later, which was detailed. I have some issues with the feedback though. They said I could code more efficiently, mentioning Python features like enumerate and optimizing list comprehension. I think my code was already efficient, both in time and space, and it's a bit much to expect that level of optimization from a junior role under pressure. But I appreciate the learning chance and will think about their suggestions.

Started with a recruiter call, then a take-home challenge where I had to find 'mass transit billing' on GitHub. The final onsite included reviewing the take-home code, and two LeetCode-style coding interviews (one was LC 139: Word Break). The recruiter, CS, didn't follow through on giving me feedback the week after, and then ghosted me when I emailed. They finally responded days later with a rejection and ghosted again when I asked for feedback.

First, there was a casual get-together after work to see if I'd fit in. It involved chatting with the team over drinks and listening to the CEO give a talk, where I could ask questions. Then, if they liked me, I had to do a coding test. I was given requirements for a board game and asked to build it with 'production-ready' code. After that, if the coding test went well, I was invited back for a more formal interview. This interview had three sections: reviewing code, tackling algorithms, and then system design. The whole process was pretty smooth, and I thought I'd get an offer, but I messed up the basic algorithms part, which was really annoying since it's usually straightforward for me. Definitely review your fundamental algorithms before you go!