Hubspot Software Engineer Interview Guide
Detailed, specific guidance on the Hubspot Software Engineer interview process - with a breakdown of different stages and interview questions asked at each stage
The role of a Hubspot Software Engineer
HubSpot is a prominent player in the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) industry, renowned for its commitment to helping businesses thrive. Explore related positions in similarly levelled companies such as Patreon Software Engineer and Snap Software Engineer guides. They offer an array of software and support services tailored to facilitate growth. Their product suite encompasses marketing, sales, service, and website management tools, which are available for free and can be seamlessly scaled to meet the evolving needs of businesses at any stage of development.
Within HubSpot, Software Engineers play a pivotal role. They are responsible for conceptualizing designing, and constructing crucial infrastructure tooling. Their work involves engaging with highly distributed systems that harness the power of open-source technologies like HBase, Kafka, Spark, Memcached, MySQL, and ElasticSearch. The overarching objective is to empower HubSpot users with the capacity to efficiently store, automate, report on, and engage with their customers on a grand scale.
In terms of compensation, HubSpot Software Engineers earn an attractive average total compensation package of $154,242.
Hubspot Software Engineer Interview Guide
Interview Guide
There are 4 rounds to the HubSpot Software Engineer Interview:
- Phone Screen with Recruiter
- Coding Assessment
- Behavioural Phone Interview
- Onsite Interview
Let's discuss each of these in detail:
Relevant Guides
Hubspot Software Engineer - Phone Screen with Recruiter
Overview
This is your initial contact with HubSpot's recruitment team. This is your chance to demonstrate your enthusiasm for the company and the role you're applying for. Be prepared to discuss your background, experience, and motivations for joining HubSpot.
Hubspot Software Engineer - Coding Assessment
Overview
HubSpot's coding assessment is known for being practical and more enjoyable compared to traditional coding challenges. It's a 3-hour assessment where you'll likely encounter tasks related to real-world scenarios. For comparison, see the Capital One Software Engineer and Square Software Engineer guides.
They want to assess your ability to work with data from URLs, which is essential for web-based applications. In particular, be prepared to demonstrate your ability to retrieve and send data to/from a URL.
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Hubspot Software Engineer - Behavioural Phone Interview
Overview
This segment is all about your soft skills and how well you work in a team; be ready for "tell me about a time when..." questions, which require you to draw on your past experiences.
Highlight your teamwork skills, emphasising what you enjoy about collaborating with others and sharing anecdotes from your past teamwork experiences.
Hubspot Software Engineer - Onsite Interview
Overview
The onsite interview represents the final round of interviews for HubSpot software engineers. It typically consists of the following elements:
- Recruiter Chat: The onsite visit kicks off with a 15-minute chat with a recruiter. This serves as an opportunity to address any last-minute questions or concerns you might have before proceeding with the interviews. It's also a chance to ensure you have all the logistical details for the onsite visit.
- Director of Engineering Chat: Following the recruiter chat, you'll have a 15-minute conversation with a director of engineering. This part of the interview could provide valuable insights into HubSpot's engineering culture and leadership. It's an opportunity for you to gain a deeper understanding of what it's like to work in the engineering organisation at HubSpot.
- Technical Interviews: The core of the onsite round comprises two consecutive technical interviews, each lasting 45 minutes. These interviews are designed to assess your technical skills and problem-solving abilities.
undefinedundefined - Behavioural Interview: In addition to technical assessments, you'll also face a behavioural interview. During this portion of the interview, you'll be asked about your past experiences working in teams. This interview assesses your interpersonal skills and teamwork abilities.
Tips
Here are 4 tips for the Hubspot Software Engineer onsite round:
- For the programming segment, you should be prepared for both general coding questions and those specific to JavaScript. Expect questions like merging sorted lists and working with strings. A solid understanding of JavaScript is crucial for the second interview, so review topics like prototypes, rest parameters, inheritance, and various JavaScript methods. To prepare thoroughly, you might want to check out resources like javascript.info for in-depth JavaScript knowledge.
- Remember, HubSpot tends to maintain consistent coding questions, so practising with previous interview questions can be helpful.
- Also, be ready for theoretical questions on a specific programming language, databases, design patterns, and potentially implementing binary tree traversal algorithms. Additional resources include the Flexport Software Engineer guide.
- For the behavioural round, be prepared to share specific examples of situations where you demonstrated effective collaboration or communication with cross-functional teams.
Interview Questions
Interview Questions
- Given a JSON dataset containing information about products, how would you parse it and extract specific product details using JavaScript?
- Can you describe a challenging project where you worked in a team? What was your role, and how did you contribute to the team's success?
- Explain how rest parameters work in JavaScript. Provide an example of a function that uses rest parameters to handle a variable number of arguments.
- Write a JavaScript function to merge two sorted arrays into one sorted array. Additionally, write a function to cut a given array to a specified length.
- How can you use the `bind()` and `apply()` functions in JavaScript to enhance the functionality of `console.log()`? Provide an example.
- Imagine you have a custom function called `addCommas()` that should insert commas between every letter of a string. How would you call this function with the input "hello"?
- Design a database system that can handle user profiles, friend connections, and post interactions similar to a social media platform like Facebook. Discuss the tables, relationships, and data storage considerations.
- Solve a coding problem involving an array. For example, given an array of integers, find the maximum subarray sum.
- Explain the concept of design patterns in software development. Can you provide an example of a commonly used design pattern and its benefits?
Hubspot Software Engineer Roles and Responsibilities
Following are the roles and responsibilities of a Hubspot Software Engineer:
- You'll play a crucial role in helping product and infrastructure teams identify and address issues through a blameless process, much like the 5 whys methodology. Further details can be found in the Netflix Software Engineer and Goldman Sachs Software Engineer guides.
- You'll be embedded within product and infrastructure teams, working closely with them to develop more reliable and scalable software.
- You'll be responsible for conceiving, designing, and building infrastructure tooling.
- You'll be expected to be well-versed with the best practices in reliability engineering to help establish a culture of reliability and resilience within the organisation.
- You'll work to identify potential risks and propose engineering processes, tooling, or work streams that reduce these risks in a customer-centric manner. The focus here is on delivering a reliable experience to customers. For more information, see the Amazon Software Engineer guide.
Hubspot Software Engineer Skills and Qualifications
Here are the skills and qualifications that a Hubspot Software Engineer must have:
- As a Senior Software Engineer, a strong foundation in JAVA is crucial. You need this to develop and maintain Hubspot's software solutions.
- Knowing your way around Kubernetes is crucial, but it's not just about configuration. You should have experience with programming within Kubernetes to effectively orchestrate infrastructure.
- A deep understanding of Linux systems internals and file systems is essential. You'll be dealing with them regularly, so being comfortable with these aspects is a must.
- Familiarity with AWS EC2 instances and their inner workings is crucial. You should be able to navigate and optimise EC2 resources effectively.
- Experience in designing and operating distributed systems and cloud infrastructure at scale is a significant advantage.
- Good teamwork and communication skills are a must.
- Having an interest or experience in implementing and iterating on processes to improve outcomes while minimising disruption to team culture is highly regarded.
- Being able to stakeholder relationships to drive positive change is a valuable skill.