Cracking the Code: My Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience at Codecademy

This is my interview experience at Codecademy, I want this to be a guide for others that could help others ace their interviews at product companies.

Company Info

• Website: https://www.codecademy.com/

• Location: Remote

• Process for Role: Senior Software Engineer - Labs

• Job Role Link: https://www.codecademy.com/about/job/4278254005

• Status: Not Selected

Interview Process Summary

Rounds Description

1. Codecademy Recruiter Screen:

In this round, you will converse with the Hiring Recruiter. You will be asked about yourself, your current place of employment, your reasons for seeking a new opportunity, your current CTC, and your expected CTC. The recruiter will then provide further details about the role for which you have applied.

2.Hiring manager Screen:

In this round, you will speak with the technical hiring manager about the role. You will need to discuss your past work experiences, highlight specific projects, and describe what you are seeking in your next position.

3.Frontend Take Home Assignment:

In this round, you will receive a CodeSandbox link containing a readme.md file with instructions for the front-end coding exercise, which will be closely related to a business use case. You will have 5 to 6 days to submit your solution. If you require additional time, you may request an extension.

4.Backend Coding Exercise:

In this round, you will be tested on your backend knowledge, specifically concerning HTTP request/response dynamics and other core backend-related topics. This round will primarily focus on real use cases that arise in Codecademy. Concentrate more on backend basics concepts don't think too complex. Please try to complete the coding before the time limit.

5.Take Home Assignment Review:

In this round, you will provide an outline of the code you wrote for the take-home assignment. Following that, you will be asked about potential improvements in your solution, possible UI enhancements, and data flow optimizations. Additionally, you will face some questions based on the specifics of the project.

6.Frontend Design & Architecture:

In this round, you will be asked to use Excalidraw to examine various UI screens from Codecademy. Dive deep into each screen to identify common components, local states, API call request/response structures, and server-side states. Endeavor to explore in detail. In excalidraw mark common components & write the json responses as much as possible. Ask as many questions as necessary to thoroughly understand the requirements for the UI.

Failed in this Round.

7.Hiring Manager Interview:

In this round, you will be asked about the company's core values, which include teamwork, feedback, transparency, and evolution. Please focus primarily on the Engineering Values matrix. Additionally, reflect on your past work, especially instances where you took the initiative to improve the codebase or user experiences. Discuss how you managed deadlines and how you overcame challenges faced while implementing new features.

Overall Experience

I had a very good Interview experience at Codecademy, recruiter was very kind and assisted in answering all the questions I had before the interview. They also clarified what was expected of me in each round. The coding questions asked ranged from easy to moderate, and each interview focused on business use cases. If you have a strong foundation in the fundamentals of JavaScript and React, you should be able to tackle them with ease.

Resources/Tips

• A similar interview process by Codecademy recruiter

• Make sure you try to give your best in each & every round possible.

I would like to tell people to start sharing their interview experiences to order using these platforms so that it would help others to ace their interviews. If you want some kind of template to document this then use this template & refer to this awesome-interview-experinces-repo. For blog cover credits go to Coverview

If you need more info regarding this article or anything related to tech or software engineering in general, drop a comment here or you can message me here ksridhar02