I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Storyblocks in Apr 2021
Interview
Started with a 30 min phone screen with the VP of ENG, then a slightly more in-depth 30 min phone screen with the hiring manager. Mostly high level technical questions and “tell me about a time…” questions. The a 3/4 day, 4-5 round zoom interview with senior or lead engineers. Questions covered system design, behavioral, and one very relaxed, pretty simple coding exercise. Offer was extended the next day. Very little room for negotiation afterwards.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Something to do with a stack. It’s been a couple months
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Storyblocks (Arlington, VA) in Jul 2019
Interview
I was originally put in contact via a recruiter. The first phase was a preliminary phone round interview screening call with an engineer. The second phase was a onsite interview process (5-6hrs) consisting of multiple 1:1 interview and pairing/whiteboard sessions with engineers from the company, including a complimentary offsite lunch with three other members from the company and a tour of the office. They got back to me with a decision within a couple days of the onsite interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions segmented around general problem solving skills, whiteboarding, coding problems, and general software design. The questions asked were more focused on determining general aptitude and problem solving vs. specific knowledge and memorization of things like data structures and algorithms.
I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Storyblocks (Arlington, VA) in Jan 2021
Interview
I was hired through an external recruiter.
The first stage consisted of a phone interview. There were no video or text editor elements, only over the phone. There was a second phone interview of the exact same nature (though apparently not all candidates get two) followed by a virtual on-site, which itself was 5 rounds.
Overall, the experience was great. This company has an amazing culture and great people, and you could see that in the interview process.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The first phone stage involved a SQL database design question. I needed to be familiar with relational data modeling and design, as well as SQL select, where, and join clauses, and join tables (and modeling around JOINs; one-to-many and many-yo-many relationships).
The second phone round was more coding / algorithmic, but still did not involve any actual writing of code or using a text editor, just the phone. Unfortunately I do not remember the exact question, but it involved the Levenshtein distance (look it up) and strings.
the virtual on-site involved video calls and sometimes text editors and writing code. a total of 5 rounds, I remember at least 2 algorithmic / leetcode style sessions, and 2 system design sessions.
the algorithmic questions were equivalent to leetcode easy and medium. I specifically remember one problem involving "balance parantheses". If you google that, you will find it on leetcode.
One of the system design sessions involved designing a feature flag service with a SQL DB. It was heavy on the DB design. I unfortunately do not remember the second, but it was more than one question unlike the first one.