Initially, I received an email from a recruiter and coordinated an introductory call via Calendly. The standard topics were discussed during that conversation. One aspect of the job I learned about that was surprising is that it is a leadership role affecting nearly 40 engineers—that seems like a lot!

Next was a technical interview conducted as a live coding exercise. It was a pseudo-realistic challenge related to one of their products. The interviewer noted he was explicitly looking for an optimal solution based on algorithmic complexity. While I quickly got a brute-force technique implemented, optimizing from there was difficult.

Both the recruiter and technical interviewer were polite and professional, and communication was clear the whole time.

Describe your experience leading software engineering teams.