Sowmya Ramani with Contributors: Conrad Damon, Tracy Burge, Bill Farner, Shia Liu, Asma Patel, Kyle Ong
At Scalyr, we value honesty and transparency. This is part of our culture, our roles and our company. As part of living those values, we want to share more specific details about our interview process for the Frontend engineering team.
First off, don’t panic. We’re a pretty fun group of people and we want to make sure you enjoy this process as well.
In short, our goal with this post is to give you an understanding of the interview steps, the types of questions you’ll be asked and a better understanding of what we’re looking for so you can come prepared. We designed our process to resemble the work you’ll actually do on the job. You won’t find whiteboard coding problems or a CS pop quiz in our interviews, but rather a process designed to let you show your skills as they relate to the day to day responsibilities of the role.
Below is an overview of our process:
Hiring Manager Call:
As a first step in the process, you will be scheduled for a 30 min chat with the hiring manager or recruiter to give you an overview of Scalyr, the position, team, other teams, day-to-day tasks. This is your chance to ask questions and learn as much about Scalyr and the team as possible.
Phone Screen:
In the next step in the process, you will be scheduled for a 60-minute phone call with one of the engineers on your prospective team.
The question
You will answer questions on topics in frontend development, knowledge of UI frameworks, algorithms, besides general questions on your background. This session will end with a short coding interview on HackerRank.
What we’re looking for
We are most interested in your knowledge and comfort level with frontend development, UI framework(s) of your choice, general CS knowledge, problem-solving skills and ability to communicate your thoughts in a concise manner.
Onsite:
If the phone screen goes well, we’d like to bring you on-site to meet more of the team in person. Our goal is to give you a sense of what it’s like to work at Scalyr while also learning more about your background and skills. During the time on-site, you’ll get to see the office, find out more about the people in Scalyr and interact with some of the best minds in the space.
Your time will be broken down along these lines.
Pair programming exercise (~2 hrs and 15 min)
Most of the onsite is designed around a pair programming exercise where you’ll work with some members of the team. We encourage you to bring your own laptop and keybindings along so you’re working in a familiar environment. You are encouraged to use your preferred programming language and can use Google for any questions around syntax or documentation.
The question
You’ll be developing a simple user management page. We’ll be looking for your ability to implement a simple user interface and communicating your thought process. You should use the same practices implementing this challenge as you would for any professional code you write. You may use any JavaScript framework or library to complete it.
Additional details:
Lunch (30 mins)
After the pair programming exercise in the morning, you’ll get a lunch break. The lunch session is a time for you to take a breather and get a chance to meet more of the team in a casual setting. Feel free to ask them about Scalyr, or just chat about your interests and hobbies. Your call, you run the lunch agenda.
Technical Interview (45 mins)
After lunch, we will give you a design and coding challenge where you will play the role of a team lead who is given requirements from a Product Manager.
Frontend Interview (45 mins)
Here we will go over a straightforward algorithm question to get an idea of your approach to problem-solving, or a code review.
OR
Fullstack Interview (45 mins)
You will be given a technical problem to design and solve using your knowledge of full stack development.
Manager chat (45 mins)
I (Sowmya) am the manager of the Frontend engineering team. During this time, we could discuss Scalyr’s architecture and future plans for UI, or run through a high-level UI question. At Scalyr, we are looking for people who are motivated to tackle real-world problems and think of end-to-end solutions. This is a good time for you to ask about the team, culture, and engineering plans to get more insight into what your day-to-day would be like.
After the Onsite:
We will follow up with you a few days after the interview to discuss feedback and next steps. If things went well you may expect a short call with someone from our leadership team to dive into any unanswered questions you might have as well as give you further information and insight about Scalyr.
We hope this gives you better insight into our process for hiring on the Frontend Engineering team. We pride ourselves on designing a process that will be as close to the job you are interviewing for while giving you insight into the team and culture. If this sounds interesting to you, apply today!
To find out more about our open Frontend engineering roles, check out
