Meh interview experience. Some good, some bad, with a touch of negative. If you want interview experience, go for it, but their pay is not that competitive so if you're short on time then I probably wouldn't recommend interviewing here.

Phone Screen - Standard LeetCode Medium. Pretty standard phone screen. What was positive is that some startups or companies have you do multiple phone screens but they bring you onsite after one. Cordial interviewer, too.

Overall, my opinions about the company were mixed after the onsite. If you're looking for the layout, I'll go over that; if you're looking for a culture fit, I'll go over that as well.

Onsite Round Layout

• The layout is one Coding, one System Design, and two chats with PMs about your work.

• The coding was more OO design. A common problem you could find on Grokking the System Design or System Design Primer. You might get LeetCode but also prep for some OO design.

• The System Design was something you could find in a similar reference as the previous question.

• The 2 PMs just asked you about experience, what you bring to the table, and what your work style was like.

General Conclusion/Thoughts after the Onsite - It's mixed. A lot of these problems are with NYC startups in general and not N26, which is why I stay away from startups usually.

• Recruiters were great. If these were the people I was working with day-to-day on the product then it'd be nothing but positive reviews from me. N26 knows how to hire people-people in this position.

• "Hey, let's pay you less money than you're making now but have an arbitrarily higher bar. You're also sitting on multiple offers from more reputable companies that pay more, but we won't budge!" In their defense, startups have to be pickier to stay agile/efficient, but it's still a waste of time for everyone if you're looking for competitive compensation.

• "Hey, we want that tech company talent, but we're also going to not follow the tech company format and do our own thing!" I don't remember the last time I received an OO design problem. I can count on one hand how many I've received in the last few years. Most companies will follow the standard LeetCode + System Design + maybe 1 PM fit. It's a waste of my time to study OO design when maybe 1 in 15 companies (usually a startup) will ask this question so it's best for me to focus on coding questions. Though, I'm glad they had more PM interviews if they were looking for culture fit.

• General Feel of the Interview - There was a lot of animosity bleeding from the interviewers about the company or about other employees when they were answering the questions I had. Animosity that made me question if I wanted to work here. I won't make things too ad hominem, but the software engineers sort of carried that software engineer personality, i.e. not too sociable and not someone you want to collaborate with 8 hours a day.

Remember that interviewing is a 2-way street, and my bar is pretty simple: "Do I want to work here 8+ hours a day with these people?", the answer is no. Why would I when you get less pay than what you're making now, friction from current employees, and a generally scatterbrained interviewing process?

The process included LeetCode, OO design, system design, and 2 behavioral rounds.