Software Engineering · Chapter 7 of 8
The software engineering loop, round by round
Five rounds, each testing something specific. Knowing which lets you choose the right story.
| Round | What it is really testing | Prepare |
|---|---|---|
| Recruiter | Level, motivation, comp fit | A one-sentence answer to why this company |
| Coding | Progress under uncertainty, thinking aloud | Two problems a day, out loud, on a timer |
| System design | Trade-off reasoning with numbers | Five designs, each ending in a bottleneck you name |
| Deep dive on your work | Whether you actually did what your CV says | One project, three levels of why on every decision |
| Behavioural / values | Conflict, failure, and whether you are pleasant to work near | Five stories, one of them a failure that was yours |
The deep dive is the round people under-prepare
You will be asked about one thing on your CV in far more detail than you expect — why that database, why that framework, what you would do differently, what the alternative was and why you rejected it. Decisions made casually two years ago need reconstructing, and ‘that was the team standard’ is an acceptable answer only if you can say what the standard was for.
The five stories, and the one everybody skips
An outcome you owned. A conflict you resolved. Something you shipped that failed. A time you changed your mind given evidence. And something you are still not sure you got right.
The last one is the differentiator. Candidates present a resolved narrative for everything, and interviewers who have done the job know that is not what engineering feels like.