Redfin

Technical Lead Interview Experience - Seattle, Washington

April 1, 2021

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Initial call with hiring manager to go over a few behavioral questions and get a feel for the job and the team.
Food truck coding challenge. It was pretty straightforward; I returned it in four or five days.
Virtual onsite with the team: a. Technical Presentation -- I was told they do this for all Tech Lead positions and up. I enjoyed it. I picked a project I'd been a part of and presented it to the team. I prepared a few slides in place of a whiteboard. The team asked a lot of questions. b. PM/Soft Engineer - non-technical interview. c. Senior Engineer - technical algorithm/data structure question. d. Principal Engineer - system design question. e. Software Engineer - technical algorithm/data structure question. f. Hiring Manager - The hiring manager stayed late, and we chatted for a while past our allotted time. I thought this was a good sign.

All in all, I really enjoyed the experience. I ultimately did not get an offer, but I did enjoy the process. The questions were reasonable, and I enjoyed it. I was disappointed they were moving forward with someone else, especially because they told me I was the only candidate, but I understand.

Questions

System design, algorithms, behavioral, data structures

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Redfin Technical Lead role in Seattle, Washington.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Redfin's interview process for their Technical Lead roles in Seattle, Washington is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Redfin's Technical Lead interview process in Seattle, Washington.

Redfin Work Experiences

I enjoyed my time here

Technical Lead • Former Employee

December 16, 2025

Pros: Great teams; transparent management; aspirational

Cons: Micro-management by middle managers and a few uninspired leaders are holding back others.

I enjoyed my time here

Technical Lead • Former Employee

December 16, 2025

Pros: Great teams; transparent management; aspirational

Cons: Micro-management by middle managers and a few uninspired leaders are holding back others.

Going downhill for a while

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, CA

Pros: Some smart people still work here.

Cons: Most smart people left already.

Going downhill for a while

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, CA

Pros: Some smart people still work here.

Cons: Most smart people left already.

Software Developer in Seattle

Senior Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

February 24, 2018

Pros: * I'm excited about the directions that we're headed technically: SOA, React Native, better testing and quality culture, etc. * Folks in the engineering org are competent and kind. With a few exceptions, I trust my colleagues, including PMs and managers, to know what they're doing and deliver. That's been much more rare at past jobs. * I trust the execs to treat people well and make honorable and moral decisions. * The values that they claim are generally the ones lived out, and jive well with my own values. * The commitment to diversity is real and intentional. * Work-life balance is encouraged at all levels, especially for engineering. * My direct manager is fantastic. I've never had such good conversations about goals, opportunities to get there, and clear feedback about where I need to grow.

Cons: * Relational culture means that at times change can be slow. * Tech debt; we're actively working on it, but there were obviously some periods when the team was spread too thin and quality was not maintained. * Work environment is flexible, but I'd love to see it be more so. I can work from home any time I want and no one is keeping track of when I'm there, but it's definitely more of an office-centric culture where working from home more than 3-4 times a month would feel out of step. * Java

Software Developer in Seattle

Senior Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

February 24, 2018

Pros: * I'm excited about the directions that we're headed technically: SOA, React Native, better testing and quality culture, etc. * Folks in the engineering org are competent and kind. With a few exceptions, I trust my colleagues, including PMs and managers, to know what they're doing and deliver. That's been much more rare at past jobs. * I trust the execs to treat people well and make honorable and moral decisions. * The values that they claim are generally the ones lived out, and jive well with my own values. * The commitment to diversity is real and intentional. * Work-life balance is encouraged at all levels, especially for engineering. * My direct manager is fantastic. I've never had such good conversations about goals, opportunities to get there, and clear feedback about where I need to grow.

Cons: * Relational culture means that at times change can be slow. * Tech debt; we're actively working on it, but there were obviously some periods when the team was spread too thin and quality was not maintained. * Work environment is flexible, but I'd love to see it be more so. I can work from home any time I want and no one is keeping track of when I'm there, but it's definitely more of an office-centric culture where working from home more than 3-4 times a month would feel out of step. * Java

I enjoyed my time here

Technical Lead • Former Employee

December 16, 2025

Pros: Great teams; transparent management; aspirational

Cons: Micro-management by middle managers and a few uninspired leaders are holding back others.

4.0
I enjoyed my time here
Technical Lead • Former Employee
Seattle, WA
December 16, 2025
Pros: Great teams; transparent management; aspirational
Cons: Micro-management by middle managers and a few uninspired leaders are holding back others.

Going downhill for a while

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, CA

Pros: Some smart people still work here.

Cons: Most smart people left already.

3.0
Going downhill for a while
Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, CA
April 16, 2025
Pros: Some smart people still work here.
Cons: Most smart people left already.

Software Developer in Seattle

Senior Software Development Engineer • Current Employee

February 24, 2018

Pros: * I'm excited about the directions that we're headed technically: SOA, React Native, better testing and quality culture, etc. * Folks in the engineering org are competent and kind. With a few exceptions, I trust my colleagues, including PMs and managers, to know what they're doing and deliver. That's been much more rare at past jobs. * I trust the execs to treat people well and make honorable and moral decisions. * The values that they claim are generally the ones lived out, and jive well with my own values. * The commitment to diversity is real and intentional. * Work-life balance is encouraged at all levels, especially for engineering. * My direct manager is fantastic. I've never had such good conversations about goals, opportunities to get there, and clear feedback about where I need to grow.

Cons: * Relational culture means that at times change can be slow. * Tech debt; we're actively working on it, but there were obviously some periods when the team was spread too thin and quality was not maintained. * Work environment is flexible, but I'd love to see it be more so. I can work from home any time I want and no one is keeping track of when I'm there, but it's definitely more of an office-centric culture where working from home more than 3-4 times a month would feel out of step. * Java

5.0
Software Developer in Seattle
Senior Software Development Engineer • Current Employee
Seattle, WA
February 24, 2018
Pros: * I'm excited about the directions that we're headed technically: SOA, React Native, better testing and quality culture, etc. * Folks in the engineering org are competent and kind. With a few exceptions, I trust my colleagues, including PMs and managers, to know what they're doing and deliver. That's been much more rare at past jobs. * I trust the execs to treat people well and make honorable and moral decisions. * The values that they claim are generally the ones lived out, and jive well with my own values. * The commitment to diversity is real and intentional. * Work-life balance is encouraged at all levels, especially for engineering. * My direct manager is fantastic. I've never had such good conversations about goals, opportunities to get there, and clear feedback about where I need to grow.
Cons: * Relational culture means that at times change can be slow. * Tech debt; we're actively working on it, but there were obviously some periods when the team was spread too thin and quality was not maintained. * Work environment is flexible, but I'd love to see it be more so. I can work from home any time I want and no one is keeping track of when I'm there, but it's definitely more of an office-centric culture where working from home more than 3-4 times a month would feel out of step. * Java

Redfin Interview Questions

Number of Islands

Given a grid representing land and water, count the number of distinct islands. An island is formed by connected land cells.

Top K Frequent Words

Find the k most frequently occurring words in a given list of words. Return the top k words sorted by frequency, and then alphabetically for words with the same frequency.

ArraysStringsGreedy Algorithms

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