This article describes the interview journey for individual contributor Software Engineering roles. Some parts of it will overlap with other departments or roles at Rover, but not all.
Resumes and Recruiting
When you apply to an open role at Rover, your application will first go to our Recruiting team. They will screen the application to make sure you’re a good fit for the role. We do not filter out resumes using LLM tools.
For candidates who make it past the initial resume screening, we like to move quickly, and you should expect to hear from our recruiting and hiring teams regularly throughout the process. If you ever find yourself wondering where your application stands, go ahead and send your recruiter an email to check in!
Another important thing to know is that at Rover, we will respond to every application, including rejections. We don’t want to leave you in the dark wondering where you stand.
Coding Exercise and Recruiter Phone Screen
Once the Engineering Recruiting team has decided that you should move on, there are generally two possible next steps:
For entry level candidates, you might be asked to do a coding challenge on CodeSignal. To learn more about CodeSignal, check out their official documentation.
For more experienced candidates (or those who passed the CodeSignal challenge), you’ll have a short conversation with our recruiting team to cover the basics for role fit, including learning about your interest and expectations about Rover
If you pass this portion of the interview process, you’ll move on to a technical phone screen!
Technical Phone Screen
The technical phone screen is a 1 hour chat with an engineer or engineering manager here at Rover. During the call, you will need to be at a computer.
To begin the chat, the Rover employee will introduce themselves and then ask a few background and behavioral questions, where you’ll have the chance to speak about your past work experience.
Then, the rest of the phone screen will be a coding challenge, also hosted in CodeSignal. This is a chance to show off some of your technical skills and also to help show how well you can communicate and explain your thought process while developing. As of this writing, we generally do not allow LLM tool use during this exercise.
You will have a chance to ask any questions you may have at the end of the interview. This is a great chance for you to gauge if Rover would be a good fit for you as well!
Once the phone screen is complete, the hiring manager for the role will look over the interviewer’s notes and recommendations and make a decision, usually within a couple days.
Next Steps
At Rover, we used to have a take-home that all candidates completed, but we’ve found this step to be increasingly outdated in the world of LLMs. Suffice to say, our interview process is being redesigned right now!
While we are trying out different approaches depending on the role you’re applying for, you should expect some sort of additional coding or skills exercise at this point in the process. We are not trying to be intentionally vague here, but anything put down on this blog post is likely to be outdated soon, so we’d rather just say: the hiring manager will make the next steps clear when you get here!
Final Interviews
These interviews will typically be conducted remotely, but if you’re near one of our engineering hubs in Seattle or Barcelona, you can request to come in person!
For the vast majority of roles, this step will be broken down into three, one hour-long blocks, each involving two interviewers with a specific focus area. During these blocks, our interviewers will be looking at how you match Rover’s core values.
One session will be focused on system, API and data model design. We would like to know how you approach a problem and what it would be like to work with you to solve a specific challenge. The session will involve doing some design work on a whiteboard (virtual or physical, depending on your location).
The next session will be focused on coding. The specifics of this session may vary, but in general, we try to provide a challenge where you are building off of code you are already familiar with, to give you the best chance to succeed. If you have been asked to write some code before coming to your interview session, you will be set up for success if you understand it well and have written it with extensibility in mind.
The third session will be with the hiring manager and one other manager, with a focus on work history and behavioral fit. You will not need to code in this one.
Debrief and Decision
Once the final interview has concluded, each interviewer will submit their feedback. The team of interviewers will meet again for a debrief which will also include the hiring manager and the recruiter. All of the people at the meeting will discuss their feedback and whether we’d like to make you an offer. This lets everyone on the interviewing team learn and grow, while additionally letting everyone see what stood out consistently. Once everyone in the room has had a chance to provide input, the hiring manager will make the final decision.
At this point, you will receive a call from the recruiter to let you know the outcome.
If you don’t get an offer, the recruiter will chat with you about that. Otherwise, if we make you an offer, congratulations! We celebrate each of our new hires and we hope you accept and come join our amazing team at Rover.