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Airtable Product Engineer Interview

Learn how to prepare for the Airtable Software Engineer interview and get a job at Airtable with this in-depth guide.

Want to land the Airtable product engineer interview? In this guide, we'll break down how to go about the Airtable product engineer interview, what types of questions are asked, and what the interviewers are looking for.

Airtable's mission is to democratize software creation, and at the company you'll be building tools and experiences to help improve access to software as a medium of creativity and productivity.

Airtable is in particular known for their rigorous coding exercise challenge, and their unique product engineer role, where you'll have an opportunity to not only code but also exercise and build your product sensibilities.

Interview Process

Interview Stages

Typically, there are four stages to product engineer interviews at Airtable: recruiter screen, coding assignment, on-site, and reference check.

Recruiter Screen

The recruiter phone screen is fairly straightforward and is mostly questions based on your resume and fit for the software engineer role. The recruiter may ask about your interests, your past experiences, and why you want to work at Airtable. During this call, the recruiter can answer any questions you have about the interview process.

No need to prepare much for this one! Review your resume to speak from it, and be sure to research a bit more about Airtable, like their company mission.

In this interview, you'll pick an interview loop. There are different loops at Airtable, like the product engineer interview loop, that each have nuanced interview processes and will focus on interview questions tailored to that role. Generally, interviews follow the same structure at Airtable beyond the specific people and questions you may interview with.

Note: for the product engineer role at Airtable, you may also be asked questions related to PM interviewing, so take a quick skim of our PM interview prep course.

Coding Assignment

Airtable asks you to fill out a six-hour coding challenge problem that you have one week to complete. The coding exercise involves building an application, and you'll be able to select a coding language and IDE of your choice. To be equitable with hiring, Airtable does compensate candidates for completing this stage of the interview.

The average response time after filling out this assignment is two weeks.

On-site

The onsite Airtable product engineer interview consists of four rounds:

  1. System design round
  2. Algorithms round
  3. Behavioral round
  4. Interview loop specific round (for product engineers, you'll wireframe a new feature for a product)

The next section will discuss specifics on how to prepare for each of these rounds, but we generally recommend using Airtable significantly before the interview so you're familiar with details and specific questions you may be asked that will be pertinent to the company.

Reference Check

Lastly, Airtable asks for reference checks before finalizing their offer.

Sample Interview Questions

The onsite Airtable product engineer interview consists of the following four rounds.

System Design

Airtable's software engineer design interview questions can seem daunting, since they involve taking real-world problems and breaking them down into small components.

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, and try your hand at some practice system design questions in our interview question database.

Algorithms and Data Structures

Be sure to review concepts like hash tables and linked lists before your interview.

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 and practicing data structures questions in our interview question database.

Behavioral

Answering behavioral interview questions effectively is key to a successful Airtable product engineer interview. The best way to prepare for behavioral interview questions is to review the company's values and mission and reflect on your own experiences.

First, do some research on Airtable's values and mission. What resonates about the company to you? What compels you to work there? Then, research and use the product itself - what potential do you see for Airtable? How might you improve the product experience?

As for your own experiences, think about a few examples and experiences that you can leverage that might be related or relevant to the interview, and that tie into Airtables values.

Of course, the best way to prepare is to practice behavioral interview questions.

Product Design

Airtable's product design interview question is a unique mix of software engineering and product design where you'll design and wireframe a new feature for the product.

Prepare for this interview by reviewing product design interview questions and reviewing the Airtable product.

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