Uber Frontend Engineer Interview Process

The interview process usually starts with a chat with a recruiter or someone from the Talent Acquisition team at Uber.

They want to understand your background, skills, and experience, especially in relation to the Front-end Engineer role at Uber. It's your chance to highlight your expertise and demonstrate why you're a good fit for the position.

The recruiter also wants to know why you're interested in joining Uber. They'll ask about your understanding of Uber's mission and values, as well as your ideas for contributing to the company's growth.

These questions may seem straightforward, but they're crucial for assessing your alignment with Uber's culture and goals—so, make sure you are well-prepared.

After the initial chat with the recruiter, you'll have the opportunity to speak directly with the hiring manager for the role. They will 

The hiring manager will dive deeper: they'll ask more detailed questions about your experiences, possibly asking about specific projects or challenges you've encountered in your career. Uber places a strong emphasis on data-driven decision-making. Therefore, be prepared to discuss how you've leveraged data in your previous roles or projects. Highlight specific examples of how you've used data to inform your decisions and drive positive outcomes.

Here, using the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method can help provide clear, crisp answers—and it's encouraged by Uber. It's also your chance to ask specific questions about the role and the team you'll be working with.

The OA consists of a 35-minute CodeSignal test, comprising two coding questions focused on Data Structures and Algorithms (DSA), along with eight multiple-choice questions (MCQs) covering various frontend concepts.

The coding questions typically range in difficulty from easy to medium—offering a fair mix of challenges to test candidates' problem-solving skills. So, for example:

• Coding Question 1 could be relatively straightforward, possibly a Math category one which involves manipulating digits within a number.
• Coding Question 2 could be a medium-level challenge, for instance, involving string manipulation or using Hashmaps and Sliding Window techniques. So, you would need a strategic approach to solve the problem effectively.

As for the MCQs, they cover a range of topics, including JavaScript (JS) and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), with an emphasis on output-based scenarios. If you have a solid grasp of JS and CSS fundamentals, you'll find these relatively easy to crack.

The final onsite round comprises 4 rounds: DSA Coding Round, Tech Specialisation Round, System Design and Architecture, and Leadership and Collaboration.

DSA Coding Round

During this round, you'll typically encounter a single coding question to solve within a designated time frame, usually around an hour. It's a good idea to go ahead and confirm the number of planned questions with the interviewer beforehand, so as to get clarity on time management.

The coding question presented in this round often falls within the medium to hard difficulty range. It involves a combination of mathematical reasoning, binary search, and handling overlapping intervals. For instance, a common question asked is determining the minimum time at which objects with specified positions and maximum velocities could meet.

Interviewers at Uber are typically vague in clarifying questions ‘cause they want you to have a fair chance to understand and approach the problem effectively. So, make sure you are able to recognize underlying patterns and devise optimal solutions within the allocated time frame.

Tech Specialisation Round

The Tech Specialization Round lasts roughly an hour and is an opportunity for you to showcase your ability to write clean, efficient, and modular JavaScript code. The difficulty level is moderate, with focus on DOM manipulations,  asynchronous programming, and ES6 concepts.

One common question is the Sequential Unbind/Bind Click scenario; you'll be tasked with writing modular and functional JavaScript code to tackle this specific problem. Or you may be asked to do a machine coding challenge centred around vanilla JavaScript. 

In addition to solving the primary coding challenge, be prepared for follow-up questions. You will discuss performance optimization techniques and brainstorm ways to modify the code for different scenarios.

System Design and Architecture

During this round, candidates are presented with a design challenge — for instance, design a Collaborative Calendar Application. The interviewer will provide requirements, and you'll be expected to discuss various aspects of the system design.

The round typically lasts for an hour and involves a Codesignal whiteboard session. You'll be evaluated on your ability to design APIs, architect components, make tech choices, and suggest performance optimizations for the application.

This round is characterised by its ambiguity, as there are no definitive right or wrong answers; you can draw from your past experiences, knowledge of best practices, or insights from industry blogs. The key is to engage in a healthy conversation with the interviewer, discussing different approaches and the trade-offs associated with each.

Remember, they're primarily interested in understanding your thought process behind designing a large-scale application. Therefore, be sure to vocalise your thinking process and share insights into your design decisions.

Leadership and Collaboration

During this one-hour round, you will be evaluated on your alignment with Uber's values, particularly in terms of leadership and collaboration. They are looking for examples of situations where you have demonstrated these values in action. So, you can anticipate questions that prompt you to share instances from your professional journey.

• Talk about a Challenging Project.
• Describe a Conflict resolution with the team.
• Talk about a time you have showcased leadership skills.
• What skills does a front-end developer need?
• Define HTML meta tags.
• Differentiate between div and span.
• What is React JS?
• Describe the advantages of REST web services.
• How do browsers render the UI?
• What is a Grid system in CSS?
• Describe the distinction between Class and Prototypal inheritance in JavaScript.
• Explain user-centred design.
• What is ClickJacking?
• Tell me when and why should I make use of Webpack?
• Mention three ways to decrease page load time.
• How does the server handle the page in which content is present in several languages?
• Why did we utilise the data attribute in HTML and why is it now advised not to use it?
• Mention the benefits of CoffeeScript over JavaScript?