The process was meticulous and took about three weeks.

It started with a phone call with the Technical Recruiter, who reached out to me on Hired Inc. We had an in-depth discussion about my experience at previous workplaces and the role.

Next was a 30-minute chat with the hiring manager. This was more about my work and gaining a better understanding.

After this, I had an hour-long remote coding session with a Senior Engineer. He asked one coding problem and one design question.

Once this was completed, I heard back from them immediately within hours, requesting an on-site interview. They flew me out of San Francisco to New York and put me up in a very nice hotel in Manhattan.

The on-site consisted of four 1-on-1 rounds, meeting Lead Engineers and Engineering Managers from different teams. The questions largely revolved around system design, architecture, and optimization, while also involving some coding. It was a very different experience where they tested my knowledge and pushed me to think better when coming up with solutions.

They got back to me real quick with an offer. It was pretty generous and fell in line with my expectations, so I didn't have to negotiate.

Nothing out of the box here.

Make sure to prepare well with algorithms and have a good conceptual understanding of distributed systems.