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Coinbase Software Engineer Interview Guide

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

Preparing for the Coinbase software engineer interview? Be sure to read our guide on the interview stages and types of questions before the interview.

Coinbase is one of the hottest fin-tech companies and growing rapidly, so software engineers at Coinbase have the opportunity to work with a variety of complex, highly technical systems that have immediate and radical impact to millions around the world.

Learn more about how to ace the Coinbase software engineer interview in the next few pages of this guide.

Interview Process

Interview Stages

Typically, there are three stages to software engineer interviews at Coinbase: recruiter screen, technical screen, and on-site.

Recruiter Screen

The 30-minute recruiter phone screen is fairly straightforward and mostly asks 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 Coinbase. 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 Coinbase, like their company mission. In particular, Coinbase cares a lot about how candidates' values align to the values of the company, so it's important to review and reflect on Coinbase's values.

Coinbase's interviews are either frontend-focused or algorithmic depending on which interview loop you select.

Technical screen

You'll then meet with a Coinbase software engineer to solve a technical problem on HackerRank. These problems will be a bit lighter in-depth and are conducted over video chat. To prepare, practice some problems on HackerRank or in our software engineer interview question database. Sometimes, a Triplebyte quiz is also sent over in the interview loop.

On-site

The onsite Coinbase software engineer interview consists of four rounds:

  1. Algorithms + Coding round – 90 minutes
  2. Algorithms + Coding round – 90 minutes
  3. System Design round – 60 minutes
  4. Behavioral round – 30 minutes

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

Sample Interview Questions

There are three types of interview questions at Coinbase: behavioral, system design, and algorithms.

Algorithms and Coding

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.

System Design

Coinbase'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.

Behavioral

Answering behavioral interview questions effectively is key to a successful Coinbase 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 Coinbase'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 Coinbase? 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 Coinbase values.

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

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