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Engineering Interviews
Engineering Interviews
We want candidates to turn in their best performance during the interview and we want to hire the best candidates we interview.
Interview Format
The typical interview process is:
Recruiter Screen - Gauge interest in Thimble, comp and level expectations, decide to move forward
*Karat Interview - Equivalent to technical phone screen using Karat. Typically 45 min - 1 hour
Remote Panel
Each interview panel will usually consist of 4 interviews. The intro will evaluate for communication, fit for Thimble/team fit, and sell the candidate on Thimble. We will have 3 technical engineering interviews.
Competency Evaluation
Each 45 minute interview should concentrate on one category + (optionally) culture fit and critical thinking. For each competency evaluated, use a scale of:
For an interview type which evaluates 4 assessed skills, each interview should end up with total points between 4-20 based on the skills assessment. Below is a suggested feedback result based on the total amount of points:
Interview Types
Time
Round
Assessed Skills
Time
Round
Assessed Skills
45 min
Algorithms and Data Structures
Problem solving: Can understand and identify an algorithm to solve the problem independently.
Implementation: Can implement a solution, naive or optimal. Optimal solution with high attention to details is higher score
Algorithmic knowledge: Can effectively describe and use appropriate data structures (Trees, Arrays, Lists, Maps, Sets), and describe why it works (complexity in big-O notation)
Debugging: Able to spot issues with implementation by themselves, as well as get feedback on it, and adjust as needed
45 min
BE Software Implementation
Problem Solving: Can understand a problem, decompose it and plan effective solution, including identify edge cases.
Technical Design: Can design and well structure a class or component to solve the problem, while describing the solution and tradeoffs made.
Implementation: Can provide a working solution for the problem that both meets the discussed specifications and using appropriate language constructs/ data structures.
Debugging: Able to spot issues with implementation by themselves, as well as get feedback on it, and adjust as needed
45 min
Problem Solving: Can understand a problem, decompose it and plan effective solution, including identify edge cases.
Technical Design: Can design and well structure a class or component to solve the problem, while describing the solution and tradeoffs made.
Implementation: Can provide a working solution for the problem that both meets the discussed specifications and using appropriate language constructs/ data structures.
Can make use of advanced front end concepts like DOM events, event cascading, debouncing, XHR, local storage, web workers, etc.
45 min
FE Skills
Can write effective and appropriate HTML/CSS to solve a UI layout problem
Understands basic concepts like browser events, DOM, scopes & closures, browser features (web sockets, indexDB, Local and session storage), and cookies
Understands advanced concepts like page optimization, server side rendering/rehydration, frameworks, debouncing
Understands how to use APIs and leverage them to solve UX needs
45 min
System Design
Can understand a distributed system problem, decompose it into parts and layers
Can write a design that accomplishes the task. More optimal designs score higher.
Understands the appropriate use and tradeoffs of design components such as databases, pub/sub and queues, caching layers, HTTP/GRPC services
Design appropriate data models to accomplish the task
45 min
DevOps Skills
Can describe basic container and OS level concepts - how to build an OS and/or Docker image
Public cloud knowledge - can describe how to build and deploy systems for at least one public cloud
45 min
DevOps Case Study
Can understand and describe a devops/infrastructure problem
Can describe or write a system design that solves the problem
45 min
Data Engineering SQL
The goal of this interview is to determine whether the candidate can build data structures for DWH & perform data retrieval and manipulation in SQL
Start with Data Modeling of the business case and then carry over to SQL on the data model built by candidate.
Check for basic constructs like JOIN, GROUP BY, DISTINCT, subqueries.
Check for advanced constructs like Self Join, Self Difference, Windows Functions.
45 min
Data Engineering System Design
Goal of this interview is to determine if the candidate can think through end to end solution for data extraction, transformation, storage & retrieval while keeping in mind their downstream consumers' needs.
Start the interview with open ended question and ask candidate to built end to end pipeline logic. Then ask candidate to enhance it with data sourcing challenges (batch vs streaming), staging, master data management etc.
Ask to enhance it with hooks to catch exceptions, errors, DQ & Auditing.
A good candidate will also explain the strategy for data model looking at the history maintenance as well as ease of retrieval for end consumers.
45 min
Data Engineering Data Modeling/ Case study
Goal of this interview is to determine if the candidate can come up with a robust data model given a user product.
You will brainstorm the data needs of a user product.
Then you will ask candidate to design a data mart to support analytics use cases.
Finally ask candidate to write select SQL statements to produce specific results.
30 min
Intro/Working at Thimble
Communication (technical & non-technical, Different levels).
Motivation to join Thimble.
Ability/ desire to work in a fast-moving team.
Team Player
30 min
Wrap up/ Team assignment
Communication (technical & non-technical, Different levels).
Motivated/ skilled to work on collaborative efforts involving collaboration, use cases etc' (vs. more pure algorithmic code efforts)
Motivated/ skilled to work on applicative efforts lie FE/ BE applications etc' (vs. services)
Team Player.
30 min
Wrap up/ Technical leadership
Communication (technical & non-technical, Different levels).
Ability to deal with ambiguity in requirements
Ability to provide technical leadership to the team
Team Player.
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Interview Panels and Topics
Panel composition is enumerated below, with the interviews and skills evaluated in the chart above.
FE SWE Panel
BE SWE Panel
Full Stack SWE Panel
System Architect/ Staff SWE Panel
Junior SWE Panel
DevOps Panel
Data Engineer Panel
Data Platform Engineer Panel (similar to BE engineer with more data focus)
Sample Panel
Time
Round
Interviewer
Time
Round
Interviewer
30 min
Introduction Working at Thimble
Candidate Q&A
Liz
45 min
Karat
Online
45 min
Software/Systems Design
Imran
45 min
Coding/Algorithms/Data Structures
Meena / Matt
1hr
Lunch
45 min
BE/FE Software implementation
Jeff / Gopal
45 mins
Product & Culture Fit
Taylor / Mitch
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Types of Questions
Some examples of types of questions that are good tests of competencies:
Feedback
Interview feedback should be written and at least a paragraph long. This is in addition to the interview skills scores given to the skills evaluated for each interview. Feedback should address the hiring decision, skills evaluated, communication, and whether the candidate is a fit for other roles. It is expected that feedback is posted in the Applicant Tracking System immediately after concluding the interview, and certainly within 90 minutes of the interview conclusion.
Each of the headings below should be a sentence or section in your interview feedback.
Hiring Decision (Required)
Each interviewer, except the lunch interviewer, will make a hiring decision. You must make a decision and add a statement that supports that decision! Even a weak hire/no hire is a clear decision to hire or not hire.
Hire
Strong Hire
Hire this person now, I want to work with them
Strong Hire
Hire this person now, I want to work with them
Hire
Solid hire, with some support / missing evidence. Other terms could be lean hire or soft hire to signal nuance in a decision.
No Hire
Will probably not be successful, will need a lot of help
Strong No Hire
Do not hire this person, likely negative impact
There are no rows in this table
Leveling (Required)
If the decision is hire, what level to hire at (e.g. Jr. BE, BE, Sr. BE, Staff). If the decision is no for one level and yes for another level, indicate that decision. It’s possible that an engineer is interviewing for Sr. BE Engineer, but a hiring decision is no for Sr. BE Engineer and yes for BE Engineer.
Red Flags/Important Information (Required)
Are there any red flags or important information about the interview or candidate that the hiring panel should know about before making a decision?
Technical Evaluation
This section is the technical evaluation for your interview. It should be relevant to coding, software implementation, system design, etc. This section should be sufficiently detailed to allow the interview panel to make a hiring decision based on your feedback
Communication, Candidate Fit, and Soft Skills
This section should evaluate candidate communication, collaboration, and other soft skills.
The primary purpose of technical interviews is the technical evaluation. If an interviewer has feedback on soft skills, it can be written in this section.
Interviewing Tips
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