Growth & full stack engineering interview script

Here is the basic interview script I use when I give growth and full stack engineering phone interviews. I give 1-3 interviews a week.

My good friend Sudhee points out that this coding interview script is severely lacking in its ability to build the relationship between the interviewer and the engineer. I deeply agree, and I'd welcome your ideas on how to improve it. My email is at the end of the article.

Phone Interview Script

Note: it's important to try to smile during the start/end of the call, because the other person can hear it, and it will help them do better on the problem, because they're less stressed. Also, saying their name twice is very important to make them feel good.

Something I do which is less standard*:

* Because the problem I give has the difficulty of an on-site problem, delivered over the phone, I like to be more forgiving.

This means I know they can code, and they can finish the problem successfully.

Good luck,
David Trejo
Email me ✉️

PS One suggestion from Sudhee, is to say something to personalize it and break the ice at the start of the call. For example, "I saw you committing on github on saturday night and I knew we had to talk!!"

The phone interview is an opportunity to build a relationship with the candidate, not just something mechanical that your boss forces you to administer. You want to make a connection. This won't be easy to do in every company.

David Trejo

Engineer at Chime & consultant. Past clients include Credit Karma, Aconex, Triplebyte, Neo, the Brown Computer Science Department, Voxer, Cloudera, and the Veteran's Benefits Administration.