The interview consisted of a 30-minute phone call with a recruiter.

Then, I had a 1-hour phone screen with a senior engineer. This involved both behavioral questions and two technical questions that included SQL queries and a simple string problem.

Finally, I was invited to an onsite interview. This consisted of four one-hour interviews (all with senior members at Wayfair, most of whom had worked there for at least 3 years). Three of these were technical, ranging from system and database design to coding problems. Most interviewers seemed to prefer using a whiteboard, while some preferred doing coding problems on a computer.

Wayfair is hiring so quickly that one might imagine the process would be chaotic, but they were very professional and organized. Everyone was very open to questions and took time to make me feel comfortable. For instance, I basically stayed in the same room the whole day, and interviewers came to me. They also gave me 30 minutes to eat lunch alone, which was an unexpectedly nice opportunity to rest and recuperate.

I was essentially told what to expect at every stage by the person coordinating my interviews. All was quite up-front and genuine. There were no surprises or tricks.

(behavioral) How did you deal with conflicts at the workplace?

(technical & behavioral) Tell me about a project you are really proud of.

(behavioral) Tell me about yourself.

(technical & behavioral) Design a database to account for X situation and do queries to show us Y information about our data.

(technical & behavioral) Design an algorithm that optimizes X system.