Every company is different, just like every person. But based on my experience as senior software engineer interviewing (both as candidate and as a hiring manager) over the past three months (big tech and startup), I've noticed two broad categories:
1. Traditional Big Tech Interview Style
A LeetCode-style coding exercise during the phone screen, followed by an onsite consisting of a mix of system design, debugging, additional LeetCode problems, and behavioral/product interviews.
2. Early-Stage Startup Style
Start with a coding homework where you're expected to build using agentic coding tools. The interviewer expects a fully working prototype, along with thoughtful design decisions and trade-offs. Note that for manager/director level hires, homework is usually a ppt presentation. Onsite completely depends on who is the hiring manager, different not just on company but on who is the hiring manager.
Early-stage startups seem more interested in seeing how you use AI agents to build real software, rather than just how well you solve isolated leetcode problems.
Last interview I had the only programming task was to design a video player API which required a lot of planning through the problem because they kept adding features to see if I had to rewrite it all.
Every company is different, just like every person. But based on my experience as senior software engineer interviewing (both as candidate and as a hiring manager) over the past three months (big tech and startup), I've noticed two broad categories:
1. Traditional Big Tech Interview Style
A LeetCode-style coding exercise during the phone screen, followed by an onsite consisting of a mix of system design, debugging, additional LeetCode problems, and behavioral/product interviews.
2. Early-Stage Startup Style
Start with a coding homework where you're expected to build using agentic coding tools. The interviewer expects a fully working prototype, along with thoughtful design decisions and trade-offs. Note that for manager/director level hires, homework is usually a ppt presentation. Onsite completely depends on who is the hiring manager, different not just on company but on who is the hiring manager.
Early-stage startups seem more interested in seeing how you use AI agents to build real software, rather than just how well you solve isolated leetcode problems.
Hope this helps!
These guys have a good hiring process (detailed) https://docs.fly.io/hiring/hiring
Last interview I had the only programming task was to design a video player API which required a lot of planning through the problem because they kept adding features to see if I had to rewrite it all.