Karat

Senior Backend Engineer Interview Experience - New Delhi, India

February 1, 2022

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I had a Karat round through Coinbase.

The interview format was as follows:

7 min - Introduction
10 min - API Design
43 min - 2 Data Structures & Algorithms questions

I was rejected, but I have some feedback.

The feedback I received was that my designing skills are very poor.

I am not sure how someone can evaluate someone's designing skills in just 5 minutes.

In this 7-minute section, the interviewer explained the question in 2 minutes, and then I had 5 minutes to design. Please be aware that if you ask any questions, you are wasting time, as the timer is on. The interviewer was constantly reminding me, "Your time starts now," "2 minutes remaining," and then "1 minute remaining."

There is no good or bad design unless you discuss it. Design is not a mathematical equation where you just need to solve the equation and give the output.

Coinbase might lose some good candidates (not me) due to Karat.

I will not ever recommend Karat.

Questions

Questions are really not a point here.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Karat Senior Backend Engineer role in New Delhi, Delhi.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Karat's interview process for their Senior Backend Engineer roles in New Delhi, Delhi is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%

Neutral0%

Negative100%

Candidates reported having very negative feelings for Karat's Senior Backend Engineer interview process in New Delhi, Delhi.

Karat Work Experiences

It was nice while it lasted but then budget issues happened

Software Engineer II • Former Employee

Pros: Wonderful manager and teammates. Friendly vibe. People want to help, learn, and improve. There is lots of passion for the product, for inclusion, and for their team. Benefits weren't bad. You got a monthly stipend to spend on anything. You just linked it to your card, and it automatically reimbursed you for $150. They had medical and gym discounts. There was a good work-life balance too. People rarely worked overtime, except for when we were on-call.

Cons: Team events were fun and hype for the first year I was there. The second year we got budget constraints and all that went out the window, along with all the talk of inclusion. I had to write code to identify what countries interview engineers were working out of, in order to remove the ones in higher-income countries from the interview matching algorithm so that it could prioritize the IVEs in India. I suppose the existing IVEs who had been working in our platform for years would simply cease to get additional interviews. Also it was a startup and there were many growing pains from the days it was founded, like hardcoded strings and numbers in crucial files that were written back in 2016, but you just have to know because you cannot go back and refactor it all. The janky way we had to just talk to the right person to get this information was worrying. Documentation was also not fantastic, with lots of tribal knowledge on teams and on-call required tons of repetition to convey information that should've been written down in the docs. The HR industry is just full of Karens, and some of our team events were cringe af. We'd go into breakout rooms to discuss our favorite book and straight up everyone in my room said Harry Potter. It doesn't get more basic lol. I think that was a sign of hard times to come because after we implemented that, we were kept on hold without a project for nearly a month before my whole team were let go in layoffs. I don't want to do tech anymore because of this.

It was nice while it lasted but then budget issues happened

Software Engineer II • Former Employee

Pros: Wonderful manager and teammates. Friendly vibe. People want to help, learn, and improve. There is lots of passion for the product, for inclusion, and for their team. Benefits weren't bad. You got a monthly stipend to spend on anything. You just linked it to your card, and it automatically reimbursed you for $150. They had medical and gym discounts. There was a good work-life balance too. People rarely worked overtime, except for when we were on-call.

Cons: Team events were fun and hype for the first year I was there. The second year we got budget constraints and all that went out the window, along with all the talk of inclusion. I had to write code to identify what countries interview engineers were working out of, in order to remove the ones in higher-income countries from the interview matching algorithm so that it could prioritize the IVEs in India. I suppose the existing IVEs who had been working in our platform for years would simply cease to get additional interviews. Also it was a startup and there were many growing pains from the days it was founded, like hardcoded strings and numbers in crucial files that were written back in 2016, but you just have to know because you cannot go back and refactor it all. The janky way we had to just talk to the right person to get this information was worrying. Documentation was also not fantastic, with lots of tribal knowledge on teams and on-call required tons of repetition to convey information that should've been written down in the docs. The HR industry is just full of Karens, and some of our team events were cringe af. We'd go into breakout rooms to discuss our favorite book and straight up everyone in my room said Harry Potter. It doesn't get more basic lol. I think that was a sign of hard times to come because after we implemented that, we were kept on hold without a project for nearly a month before my whole team were let go in layoffs. I don't want to do tech anymore because of this.

Opportunities to explore tech, but poor culture and pay

QA Lead • Current Employee

August 19, 2026

Pros: Many projects to explore technology.

Cons: There was no salary hike, and the work culture was not good.

Opportunities to explore tech, but poor culture and pay

QA Lead • Current Employee

August 19, 2026

Pros: Many projects to explore technology.

Cons: There was no salary hike, and the work culture was not good.

Flexible Schedule, Few Interviews

Freelance Interview Engineer • Former Employee

Brooklyn, New York, United States

October 13, 2024

Pros: Easily set your schedule.

Cons: Interviews were sparse a lot of the time.

Flexible Schedule, Few Interviews

Freelance Interview Engineer • Former Employee

Brooklyn, New York, United States

October 13, 2024

Pros: Easily set your schedule.

Cons: Interviews were sparse a lot of the time.

It was nice while it lasted but then budget issues happened

Software Engineer II • Former Employee

Pros: Wonderful manager and teammates. Friendly vibe. People want to help, learn, and improve. There is lots of passion for the product, for inclusion, and for their team. Benefits weren't bad. You got a monthly stipend to spend on anything. You just linked it to your card, and it automatically reimbursed you for $150. They had medical and gym discounts. There was a good work-life balance too. People rarely worked overtime, except for when we were on-call.

Cons: Team events were fun and hype for the first year I was there. The second year we got budget constraints and all that went out the window, along with all the talk of inclusion. I had to write code to identify what countries interview engineers were working out of, in order to remove the ones in higher-income countries from the interview matching algorithm so that it could prioritize the IVEs in India. I suppose the existing IVEs who had been working in our platform for years would simply cease to get additional interviews. Also it was a startup and there were many growing pains from the days it was founded, like hardcoded strings and numbers in crucial files that were written back in 2016, but you just have to know because you cannot go back and refactor it all. The janky way we had to just talk to the right person to get this information was worrying. Documentation was also not fantastic, with lots of tribal knowledge on teams and on-call required tons of repetition to convey information that should've been written down in the docs. The HR industry is just full of Karens, and some of our team events were cringe af. We'd go into breakout rooms to discuss our favorite book and straight up everyone in my room said Harry Potter. It doesn't get more basic lol. I think that was a sign of hard times to come because after we implemented that, we were kept on hold without a project for nearly a month before my whole team were let go in layoffs. I don't want to do tech anymore because of this.

3.0
It was nice while it lasted but then budget issues happened
Software Engineer II • Former Employee
Seattle, WA
April 27, 2026
Pros: Wonderful manager and teammates. Friendly vibe. People want to help, learn, and improve. There is lots of passion for the product, for inclusion, and for their team. Benefits weren't bad. You got a monthly stipend to spend on anything. You just linked it to your card, and it automatically reimbursed you for $150. They had medical and gym discounts. There was a good work-life balance too. People rarely worked overtime, except for when we were on-call.
Cons: Team events were fun and hype for the first year I was there. The second year we got budget constraints and all that went out the window, along with all the talk of inclusion. I had to write code to identify what countries interview engineers were working out of, in order to remove the ones in higher-income countries from the interview matching algorithm so that it could prioritize the IVEs in India. I suppose the existing IVEs who had been working in our platform for years would simply cease to get additional interviews. Also it was a startup and there were many growing pains from the days it was founded, like hardcoded strings and numbers in crucial files that were written back in 2016, but you just have to know because you cannot go back and refactor it all. The janky way we had to just talk to the right person to get this information was worrying. Documentation was also not fantastic, with lots of tribal knowledge on teams and on-call required tons of repetition to convey information that should've been written down in the docs. The HR industry is just full of Karens, and some of our team events were cringe af. We'd go into breakout rooms to discuss our favorite book and straight up everyone in my room said Harry Potter. It doesn't get more basic lol. I think that was a sign of hard times to come because after we implemented that, we were kept on hold without a project for nearly a month before my whole team were let go in layoffs. I don't want to do tech anymore because of this.

Opportunities to explore tech, but poor culture and pay

QA Lead • Current Employee

August 19, 2026

Pros: Many projects to explore technology.

Cons: There was no salary hike, and the work culture was not good.

3.0
Opportunities to explore tech, but poor culture and pay
QA Lead • Current Employee
Pune
August 19, 2026
Pros: Many projects to explore technology.
Cons: There was no salary hike, and the work culture was not good.

Flexible Schedule, Few Interviews

Freelance Interview Engineer • Former Employee

Brooklyn, New York, United States

October 13, 2024

Pros: Easily set your schedule.

Cons: Interviews were sparse a lot of the time.

4.0
Flexible Schedule, Few Interviews
Freelance Interview Engineer • Former Employee
Brooklyn, New York, United States
October 13, 2024
Pros: Easily set your schedule.
Cons: Interviews were sparse a lot of the time.

Karat Interview Questions

Text Justification

Given a sequence of words and a line width, format the text to fit within the specified width. You must justify the text, distributing extra spaces evenly between words.

Check if Every Row and Column Contains All Numbers

Determine if every row and every column in a given square matrix contains all the numbers from 1 to n, where n is the size of the matrix. Effectively, check if it's a valid Sudoku (without subgrids).

Alert Using Same Key-Card Three or More Times in a One Hour Period

You're given employee names, key-card access times, and need to identify employees who used the same key-card three or more times within a one-hour period. Return these employees in sorted order.

ArraysStringsTwo PointersSliding Windows

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