Asana

Asana Software Engineer Interview Guide

Asana's software engineering interviews generally break down into the following three categories. According to the Exponent community, Asana focuses heavily on object-oriented design problems, so be sure to emphasize these in your interview prep. 

Asana's coding interview is a two-hour coding exercise where they'll ask you to solve coding questions (you'll get to pick the programming language and editor). These interviews are focused on **how** you go about solving the problems, and less focused on syntax errors or reference knowledge (in fact, you can use online resources during the exercises). 

Here, it's critical to be thoughtful about how you reason through the problem, and explain your thought process more than you would in a typical coding assignment or exercise. Asana wants to see that you can think through the problem carefully and in a way that demonstrates advanced engineering knowledge. At the end of the interview, an engineer will sit down with you to talk through your solutions. This is a great opportunity to not only explain what you coded but the flaws and tradeoffs you considered when solving the exercise. Self-awareness of your own code's weaknesses and strengths is a big plus to the interviewer. 

The best way to prepare for these interviews is to practice coding problems. You can start with [our database of recently asked software engineer interview questions.](https://www.tryexponent.com/questions?role=swe)

Maximum Profit

Difference of Arrays

Find Largest Smaller BST Key

Coding

Asana emphasizes data structures problems in their algorithms & data structures questions. Be sure to review concepts like [hash tables](/courses/software-engineering/hash-tables) and [linked lists](/courses/software-engineering/linked-lists) before your interview. Asana recommends understanding, for each data structure, the different types of operations that are suitable, and the relevant run-time complexity. 

One way to shine in these interviews is to always mention and consider edge cases. Is there a particularly tough "worst-case" scenario for one of the data structure's implementations? How might a certain data structure outperform another if we expect the input data to already be sorted? Considering questions like these and "zooming out" to think about the broader implications of certain data structure selections will elevate your interview answer.

To prepare for these interviews, we recommend reviewing our data structures and algorithms modules in [our software engineering course](/courses/software-engineering/hash-tables) and [practicing data structures questions in our interview question database.](/questions?role=swe&type=data-structures)

Dynamic Programming

Graphs and Trees

Stacks and Queues

Arrays

Algorithms and Data Structures

Asana's software engineer design interview questions can seem daunting, since they involve taking real-world problems and breaking them down into small components. Asana recommends answering these questions with a **bias toward simplicity** - don't overcomplicate your answer, instead, focus on clarifying the problem as much as possible, and then illuminating a path forward that is clear and concise. 

The best way to prepare for system design interviews is to watch our practice system design interviews like [this one on Facebook's news feed](/courses/software-engineering/system-design-mock-interview-facebook-newsfeed), and try your hand at [some practice system design questions in our interview question database.](/questions?type=system-design)

Design Uber or Lyft

Design a URL Shortener

How to Answer System Design Questions

How to Cover Load Balancing in a System Design Interview

Modeling and Design

Amazon

Facebook (Meta)

Robinhood

Walmart Labs

Questions like this are often asked at Amazon to assess a candidate's fit with Amazon's Leadership Principles.

Tell me about a time you made a mistake.

Better.com

Dropbox

Google

Microsoft

Rakuten

Slack

Tell me about a time you had a conflict with someone. How did you resolve it and what did you learn?

Gladly

Tell me about a time you convinced someone to change their mind.

Blend

Google Cloud (GCP)

Lightbox

Uber

How do you prioritize?

Duolingo

Klarna

LinkedIn

Why do you want to become a product manager? Or why did you become a product manager?

Asana

Interview Guides

Software Engineer

Interview Questions

Tell me about a time you made a mistake.

Tell me about a time you had a conflict with someone. How did you resolve it and what did you learn?

Tell me about a time you convinced someone to change their mind.