Skip to content
Engineering Interviews
Engineering Interviews
Interview Format
Competency Evaluation
Interview Types
Time
Round
Assessed Skills
Time
Round
Assessed Skills
1
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
2
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
3
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.
4
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
5
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
6
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
7
45 min
DevOps Case Study
Can understand and describe a devops/infrastructure problem
Can describe or write a system design that solves the problem
8
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.
9
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.
10
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.
11
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
12
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.
13
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.
There are no rows in this table
Interview Panels and Topics
Sample Panel
Time
Round
Interviewer
Time
Round
Interviewer
1
30 min
Introduction Working at Thimble
Candidate Q&A
Liz
2
45 min
Karat
Online
3
45 min
Software/Systems Design
Imran
4
45 min
Coding/Algorithms/Data Structures
Meena / Matt
5
1hr
Lunch
6
45 min
BE/FE Software implementation
Jeff / Gopal
7
45 mins
Product & Culture Fit
Taylor / Mitch
There are no rows in this table
Types of Questions
Feedback
Hiring Decision (Required)
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
1
Hire
Solid hire, with some support / missing evidence. Other terms could be lean hire or soft hire to signal nuance in a decision.
2
No Hire
Will probably not be successful, will need a lot of help
3
Strong No Hire
Do not hire this person, likely negative impact
There are no rows in this table
Leveling (Required)
Red Flags/Important Information (Required)
Technical Evaluation
Communication, Candidate Fit, and Soft Skills
Interviewing Tips
Want to print your doc?
This is not the way.
This is not the way.
Try clicking the ⋯ next to your doc name or using a keyboard shortcut (
CtrlP
) instead.