I applied through a staffing agency. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Zeller (Melbourne) in Mar 2022
Interview
There were 4 stages of the interview:
1. Chat with a Tech Lead - in the chat we talked about what I used to do, the tech stack I'm familiar with, and had some discussion on some engineering problems and the approaches that I would take as the solution.
2. Take-home Coding Challenge - on the same day after the initial chat, I received the coding challenge. It's an interesting one, aiming to get a checkout system worked out. In the README, they mentioned that they look for code extensibility, reusability, and cleanness.
3. Chat with another Tech Lead - another chat with a tech lead, a backend lead in specific. We went deeper into the technologies and had discussion on some more fundamental things such as how databases were indexed, how database sharding works. Then we went through the coding challenge and he gave me a new scenario to implement.
4. Chat with the Product Lead and HR - this was the final stage, for me to ask questions about either the product, the role, or the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How does database sharding work? How was a database indexed?
I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Zeller in Mar 2025
Interview
Very quick and smoooth process. Took roughly 10 days. 4 Rounds total
1) HR call who then assigns you a coding assignment. I generally don't do coding assignments but this one was quite simple and limited so you can expect to spend only few hours
2) Technical round with tech leads. Go over coding assignment that you wrote, extend its functionality on the spot and they will also ask you questions about your previous project experiences and grill you on conceptual questions
3) Call with Director of Engineering. More to see if you are a good fit. No coding involved. This is the final round
Project was very smooth and very fast which is very very rare nowadays in tech
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Many but here are some of the few I was asked based on my resume:
1) How would you speed up SQL Joins?
2) Explain CI/CD
Extend the functionality in your coding assignment
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Zeller
Interview
The interview process is quicker compared to other tech companies. The tech team is knowledgeable, and HR provides prompt feedback. However, the HR department has a toxic and disrespectful manner of communicating with candidates.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Question on AWS services?
What is SQS?
Problem with AWS Lambda functions?