Senior Full Stack Engineer Interview Experience

I interviewed for a senior full-stack role in Seattle, and the whole process felt way more specialized than most big-company interview loops I’ve been through. By the time I got into the loop, it felt like they'd already assumed I could code, so the real test was whether my background matched the team’s exact domain and whether I aligned with the culture memo. The technical rounds were practical React exercises tied closely to internal tooling, not DS&A problems, and the system design round was surprisingly open-ended and conversational with no architecture diagramming at all. The behavioral side was much heavier than usual, and multiple interviewers repeated the same disagreement or feedback themes to see if I had more than one canned example. Overall, it felt less like a generic company process and more like a team trying to hire someone who had basically already done their job before.

I interviewed for a senior full-stack role in Seattle, and the whole process felt way more specialized than most big-company interview loops I’ve been through. By the time I got into the loop, it felt like they'd already assumed I could code, so the real test was whether my background matched the team’s exact domain and whether I aligned with the culture memo. The technical rounds were practical React exercises tied closely to internal tooling, not DS&A problems, and the system design round was surprisingly open-ended and conversational with no architecture diagramming at all. The behavioral side was much heavier than usual, and multiple interviewers repeated the same disagreement or feedback themes to see if I had more than one canned example. Overall, it felt less like a generic company process and more like a team trying to hire someone who had basically already done their job before.