The process began with a hiring manager call. Once there was mutual interest, I had two technical phone screen rounds followed by an onsite interview.

The onsite included coding, system design, and behavioral assessments.

After the onsite, I received feedback within a few days. It took roughly another week to a week and a half to get offer details.

Overall, the process was streamlined, enjoyable, and straightforward. Interview details, including the interviewer, type of interview, expectations, and company culture, were fully communicated beforehand. The interviewers genuinely read my resume, and the entire interview loop maintained much better context than I am accustomed to. This was evident in the information shared between interviewers and how the recruiter and hiring manager stayed on top of details.

After the offer, the hiring manager and other team members were highly available for chats to discuss the company further. Overall, the interview experience was clearly standardized and formalized but retained a personal touch, ensuring I never felt like just an entry in their applicant tracking portal.

Behavioral: Questions align with the Plaid Principles. This standard behavioral interview includes hypothetical and behavioral questions related to collaboration, communication, priorities, and handling various workplace challenges.

Coding: Practical coding questions, which are too dissimilar to prepare for uniformly. A good understanding of data structures helped, but LeetCode did not translate to Plaid interview expectations. In each interview, I was given a Plaid-related problem (usually multi-part) with some requirements/goals (typically a basic solution first, then trickier requirements). I was expected to write working code and screen-share my local development environment, rather than using a platform like HackerRank.

The coding problems were akin to tricky/interesting problems encountered in day-to-day work. They require thought but don't map cleanly enough to the LeetCode-style questions dominant in the industry today.

System Design: This is a standard system design interview, also themed around an actual Plaid problem. I was expected to dot my i's and cross my t's. The interviewer went into detail with follow-up questions, ensuring my system actually worked and asking the types of follow-up questions you might receive in a design review.

Technical Deep Dive: This was essentially a 1-on-1 design review of a significant technical project I worked on, again with strong follow-up questions. These included queries about the day-to-day of collaborating and working on the project, not just the technical design.

CAVEAT: Plaid's spiky interview process offers ample opportunity to play to your strengths. My strategies and interview experiences recounted above reflect me playing to mine. Please do not frame your expectations or approach based on my specific process.