The interview process is well-structured and full of useful information. The recruiters schedule calls between the different steps to explain the next stages and provide guidance. My advice is to take advantage of those moments to ask questions and seek tips.
In the very first interview with the recruiter, there are a few small questions about past projects, so it’s worth preparing something in advance.
The first technical interview focuses on LeetCode-style questions, with a medium level of difficulty. The usual advice applies: think out loud and make use of the interviewer, in my case, they were very kind and understanding.
The second step was the live coding session. This one didn’t go very well for me, so I think I can share some extra-useful advice. The exercise is incremental: it starts simple, and then more parts are added, but you don’t get the full picture upfront. That really threw me off, I asked a lot of questions to make sure I wasn’t missing any trick, but that eats up a lot of time, and an hour goes by quickly. My advice is to just complete each task step by step and not worry about optimizations (for example, creating a context or thinking about virtualization).
The third step was system design. I was lucky enough to do it in person at the Paris office, which really helped, I felt comfortable, and the interviewer was very kind and supportive. The project focused on the frontend and API design.
The fourth and final step was the behavioral interview. I recommend preparing well and not improvising. I also found it helpful to take time to reflect on my career path and understand my strengths and weaknesses. Once again, I was lucky to have an interviewer who made me feel at ease.
After that, there were several short meetings to choose the destination team and for follow-ups, honestly, some of those meetings could have been emails (I had to take quite a few breaks from my previous job).
Good luck to everyone!