Newsela Software Engineer interview questions

3 steps. A recruiter phone screen, hiring manager technical phone screen (no coding), and a final onsite interview. Focus mostly on the programing language you are using, so if you are an expert of a programming language, you should be fine. Some high-level programming questions and basic CS concepts, no whiteboard or leetcode-liked questions at all. Focus more on industry/company/soft skills questions and spend less time on technical questions (they did not ask a single technical question listed on the job requirements). The interview is very different than other typical bay area companies (more people focus).

It was a four step process, two calls and two short on-sites. The Technical Recruiter was responsive throughout. Steps: 1. Preliminary phone call with their technical recruiter. We talked about mission, career goals, and how the engineering team operates. There were a few questions he couldn't answer about engineering so he promptly scheduled a second call for me to get these answers. 2. The second call. This was with an ops engineer who answered my remaining questions about process. We also talked shop. 3. The first of two on-sites. There were three modules: a product module with PM and QA in which we discussed management strategies, a technical module with two engineers in which we discussed a code sample I submitted, and another technical module with two engineers in which they assessed the breadth and depth of my experience by asking lots of self-contained questions. This last module was pretty unique. It takes the place of traditional white boarding and is, IMHO, a much better way of assessing a candidate's experience and exposure. 4. The second of two on-sites. There were three modules: one with the CTO, one with an Educator Specialist, and one with another Engineer. We talked about the business model, business trajectory, user feedback, and engineering culture. Takeaways: - The engineers I spoke with were very welcoming. They embrace curiosity and encourage engs who want to work across the stack to do so. Specialists are chaperones, not owners. Cross-team communication was good. - It's an interesting time to join. They're digging into some fun challenges and they're looking to grow in a smart way (spreading out new eng. hires over months). - They were very responsive. Their technical recruiter got back to me within 24-48 hours every time. I needed to get through the process fast so the second onsite was scheduled for the same week as the first and they made a decision and provided a verbal offer a day later.