Coding Interviews

The list of companies is non exhaustive and only lists the companies with jobs in Arbeitnow. For a longer list, please check the awesome hiring without whiteboard interviews guide for Software Developers

A list of companies (or teams) that don't do technical "whiteboard" interviews. "Whiteboards" is used as a metaphor, and is a symbol for the kinds of CS trivia questions that are associated with bad interview practices. Whiteboards are not bad – CS trivia questions are. Using sites like HackerRank or LeetCode probably fall into a similar category. The companies and teams listed here use interview techniques and questions that resemble day-to-day work. For example, pairing on a real world problem or a paid/unpaid take home exercise.

Coding Interviews: Do's and Don'ts

Do's:

  • Evaluate using Pair Programming on a small issue. This can display how the person communicates, comes up with solutions and is able to resolve conflicts.
  • Provide an actual work problem that the person might solve on the job. Most coding interviews have no relation to the job and are pointless.
    • Take home exercises make sense if the software engineer candidate has the bandwidth and time to do it. In this case,
    • Keep it small (couple of hours maximum)
    • Don't expect a fully functional application
    • Allow use of framework / programming language that the candidates is comfortable with, as long as it's related to the job
    • Compensate them for the time (yes, that means money)
  • Come up with a technical problem and have a conversation on how the candidate would solve it
  • Do a code review instead

Don'ts:

  • Live coding is anxious and only evaluates interviewing skills.
  • Solving trivia / algorithmic questions encourages memorization of solutions
    • Everyone knows about Cracking the Coding Interview
    • Tests only knowledge of data structures and algorithms that they might not use on their job
  • Whiteboard interviews are stressful and anxiety-inducing
  • Whiteboard technical interviews appear to favor men over women
  • Leetcode interview questions encourage smart programming solutions, not readable code

Algolia

Paris, France / San Francisco, CA

Takehome project & Onsite discussions and presentation

AutoScout24

Munich, Germany

Skype interview followed by home assignment from our day-to-day business and then on-site interview including lunch with a team

Backbase

Amsterdam, Netherlands; Cardiff, Wales; London, UK; Atlanta, GA

Takehome project, interviews

Backbone

Boulder, CO

Initial phone screening to determine general fit, take-home project, finally an on-site where we discuss your take-home project and you meet the team.

CJ Affiliate

Los Angeles, CA & Westlake Village, CA

Phone coding design exercise (no algorithms), followed by an on-site final interview that includes pair programming on a realistic object-oriented design problem

eBay Kleinanzeigen

Berlin, Germany

45 mins technical phone interview, take-home project/review, on-site interview including pair programming with team lead and agile interview with product manager.

Engel & Völkers Technology

Hamburg, Germany

Remote technical interview with an Engineering Manager, followed by a practical coding challenge implemented in 5 hours, ending with a technical discussion with the team on the produced code either remotely or on-site based on geographical practicality.

FRIDAY

Berlin, Germany

Take-home real-world challenge, interview on-site or remote

GoDaddy

Sunnyvale, CA

Pair programming with senior engineers

JustWatch

Berlin, Germany

Take-Home project, discussion on-site

Kentik

San Francisco, CA

Phone screening to discuss technical background and past experience. Take-home assignment followed by on-site code review and interview. Cultural fit assessment

Mapbox

San Francisco, CA; Washington, DC; Ayacucho, Peru; Bangalore, India; Berlin, Germany; Remote

Conversational interviews, paid onsite project with team.

Platform.sh

Remote

Remote Interview, Wide-Ranging discussions on many diverse subjects. Remote interviews with team members.

Sixt

Munich, Germany

4 stages: 1st HR, 2nd take-home project, 3rd follow-up discussion, 4th on-site interview with team plus HR

Snyk

London, UK; Tel Aviv, Israel

Take home task, then a pair coding on it

Xplor

Melborne, Australia; London, UK

Phone Cultural Fit interview, Take home-code challenge, pair-programming session and discussion about past experience

YouGov

Remote; San Francisco, CA; London, UK; Warsaw, Poland; Mumbai, India; Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Coding exercise sometimes over github repository, at least 1 interview with a developer and a lead, no live coding.

Zapier

Remote

Recruiter interview, take-home project, code review of the take-home project, technical discussions with hiring manager and engineers from the team, values interview.