The interview process was tough but fair. It consisted of a LeetCode medium take-home problem followed by four rounds of interviews:

• Two behavioral rounds
• Two technical rounds (systems design and coding)

The systems design round was tough, but fair given the role's requirements. The coding round, lasting two hours, offers a great chance to demonstrate teamwork. However, this particular team did not provide or allow template projects, which resulted in a lot of boilerplate code that detracted from the substance of the problem. An improvement here would be welcome.

I really liked the "bar raiser" concept and especially appreciate that they interview for cultural fit, unlike the process at Amazon. Ultimately, the team successfully filled its staff-level requirements.

I then entered team matching and quickly found an amazing team that was actually better aligned with my professional goals and interests.

Make sure you know popular and common architectures relevant to your role.

Know common data structures and algorithms.

Be prepared for LC medium or hard problems, especially on the Twilio side.

Know how to write clean and maintainable code that follows commonly accepted principles and best practices.