Question 1

Design a system you've built. Now design the version you wish you'd built.

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 2

Tell me about a technical decision your team disagreed with you on.

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 3

Walk me through an outage you owned end-to-end.

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 4

How do you write an RFC that gets read?

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 5

Describe a time you stopped a project from shipping for technical reasons.

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 6

What does mentorship look like in your day-to-day?

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 7

Tell me about a piece of legacy code you migrated. Why was it worth it?

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 8

How do you handle the engineer on your team who's the smartest but the slowest?

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 9

Walk me through your last on-call rotation. What did you change after?

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Question 10

Describe a system design tradeoff you'd undo if you had a time machine.

Accepted Answer

Answers vary by candidate. Key: Bring a one-pager you can sketch on a whiteboard for the headline project — boxes, arrows, the three numbers (RPS, latency, data size). Don't ad-lib it. When asked 'how would you design X', start with the hard part: read/write ratio, consistency requirement, single point of failure. Don't draw the API gateway first. Tailor a response to your specific experience using JobJab's interview prep tool.

Staff Software Engineer interview questions

The questions (10)

How to prepare

Get answers tailored to your Staff Eng resume.