03. Tech Interviews at Different Companies

Technical Interviews at Different Companies

The structure of technical interviews at companies can vary wildly. The following mock interview is structured how a company like Udacity would interview engineering candidates, but it doesn’t represent all technical interviews.

Small Companies

Generally, smaller tech companies and start-ups will ask lots of questions to gauge how familiar you are with the platform they want you to work on, as well as a few more general coding questions in the language of your choice. They’ll also ask behavioral questions, normally to get a sense of your “culture-fit”. Culture-fit is an ill-defined term, but it’s basically whether you have the same values as the people who currently work at the company (as well as if you have a good work ethic and would generally make a good employee).

Large Companies

Interviewing for a large company can be completely different. Most large companies have many rounds of interviews. There’s normally an initial phone screen, where the interviewer (usually a recruiter) will ask you questions about your background and interests to gauge which role would be a good fit for you. This could also include behavioral interview questions, or those could be separated out into a separate interview.

The next round (or few rounds) involve coding problems not specific to a platform. These questions focus on algorithms, data structures, and other concepts often taught in introductory computer science classes at universities. You can usually pick the language you want to solve these problems in, and sometimes even write in pseudo-code, though there might be a recommended language or one that you should use. (For example, if you’re interviewing for an Android position, it would be wise to use Java as your programming language of choice.) We have included a taste of this type of question in this course, but it isn’t the main focus. We highly recommend that you check out the Career Resource Center (in the “Resources” tab on your homepage) to get more examples of these types of question.

Sometimes the last round is with specific teams within the company. The team members are the people who you would work with if you get an offer, so they may ask behavioral questions to assess how well you’d fit in with the team. (These may be similar to the “culture-fit” questions small companies ask.) They will also probably ask more platform-specific questions, relevant to what their team does. Some big companies don’t have this step, and could either assign you to a team or allow you to try out different teams during your first few months of work.

Discover the Interview Process at a Specific Company

Regardless, this mock interview should give you a taste for what industry interviews are like. If you want to know more about a particular company’s interview process, you have a few options. The best is asking a recruiter at the company or friend who’s been through their interview process before. You can also research online—Glassdoor and other companies have banks of comments from people who’ve interviewed at a wide variety of companies before, and they’re full of helpful tips and insights.