Acing Your Carta Interview: Insider Tips and Sample Questions for Software Engineers

If you have an interview coming up with Carta, you’re likely eager to land a role at this high-growth company transforming the equity management space. To stand out among top applicants and showcase your skills, solid preparation is key

In this comprehensive guide, I’ll provide insider perspectives and sample questions to help you master the Carta software engineering interview process With the right mindset and practice responding to likely questions, you can highlight your strengths and impress hiring managers. Let’s get started!

Company Overview

First, some background on Carta to understand their mission and principles. Founded in 2012, Carta modernizes how equity is managed through SaaS solutions. They aim to provide transparency, efficiency, and fairness to stakeholders in private companies.

Carta facilitates important tasks like valuations, investments, and employee equity compensation. Their products like CartaX and Carta Capital enable trading of equity and capital raises. Top customers include Stripe, Shopify, and Instacart.

The company is still private but achieved unicorn status in 2019 with a $1 billion+ valuation. They now have over 1000 employees globally. The culture prides itself on diversity, inclusion, and empowering people financially.

Carta’s Interview Format

Carta’s software engineering interview process typically follows these key stages:

• Initial phone screen with recruiter
• Take-home coding assignment
• Technical video interviews:
  • Coding challenges
  • System design
  • Behavioral questions
• Manager video interviews
• Final decision

The take-home assignment involves architecting, coding, and deploying a small web app, usually within 5-7 days. Technical interviews dive into data structures, algorithms, object-oriented principles, and system design.

Behavioral questions evaluate your past experience, leadership, communication skills, and cultural fit. Overall, expect the process to be rigorous but fair in assessing your skills.

Technical Interview Questions

Here are examples of common technical questions from Carta software engineering interviews:

Coding:

• Implement a function to reverse a string in place without using built-in reverse methods
• Find the Nth node from the end in a singly linked list
• Check if a binary tree is a valid binary search tree

System Design:

• Design a URL shortening service like Bitly
• Design a ride sharing app like Uber focused on availability and real-time ride matching
• Optimize a system to retrieve top trending hashtags from Twitter in real-time

Object-Oriented Programming:

• Explain inheritance, encapsulation, abstraction, and polymorphism
• Compare abstract classes and interfaces in Java
• Design an e-commerce site – what classes and relationships would you need?

Data Structures:

• Explain how a hash table works and the complexity of lookups
• Implement a queue using stacks
• Find the shortest distance between two nodes in an undirected, weighted graph

Algorithms:

• Reverse a linked list iteratively and recursively
• Find duplicate numbers in an array in O(N) time
• Check if a string contains unique characters

Testing:

• How would you test a queue data structure?
• What are unit, integration and system testing?
• Explain test-driven development

Behavioral Interview Questions

Here are some common behavioral questions from Carta interviews:

• Why do you want to work at Carta specifically?
• Tell me about a challenging technical problem you solved.
• Describe a time you disagreed with teammates on an approach. How did you come to a resolution?
• How do you stay up-to-date on the latest technologies and industry trends?
• What principles and strategies do you use when designing large-scale systems?
• Tell me about a project you worked on that you are most proud of.
• How do you balance delivering features quickly with writing high quality, maintainable code?

Tips to Prepare for Carta Interviews

With Carta’s emphasis on complex technical skills and collaboration, here are my top tips to prepare:

Review Key Computer Science Concepts

• Brush up on core data structures, algorithms, design patterns, testing, and OOP best practices
• Solidify knowledge of system architecture, scaling, caching, microservices, and other critical design considerations

Practice Coding Challenges

• Leetcode, HackerRank, Codility, and other platforms to practice coding interview questions
• Focus on mastering techniques like sliding windows, dynamic programming, tree traversal

Research Carta’s Technology

• Learn about their core stack – Python, Kafka, React, Kubernetes, AWS
• Understand their architecture to discuss and design systems effectively

Reflect on Behavioral Stories

• Identify 3-5 strong stories showcasing leadership, problem-solving, technical acumen, communication, and passion

Attend Carta Events

• Webinars, talks, conferences, and meetups to gain insights pre-interview

Ask Great Questions

• Prepare thoughtful questions that show enthusiasm and understanding of Carta’s mission

With diligent preparation, you can highlight both your technical abilities and cultural fit with Carta’s principles. Show your hunger to join a hypergrowth company transforming equity management.

Common Questions from Candidates

Now let’s cover some frequent questions engineers have when interviewing with Carta:

How should I prepare for the take-home assignment?

Start by carefully reviewing the requirements and planning your architecture, flow, and deliverables. Treat it like a production system – write clean, maintainable code with tests, docs, and deployment. Focus on showcasing problem-solving and technical skills vs just finishing quickly. Ask clarifying questions.

What technologies will I be using day-to-day?

Carta utilizes a modern tech stack including Python, React, Kafka, Kubernetes, and AWS. Expect to work with distributed systems and large datasets. Domains include SaaS apps, data platforms, dev tools, machine learning, and mobile.

How long is the interview process?

Most candidates complete the full process within 2-3 weeks, but can vary based on scheduling.Move quickly through scheduling interviews to demonstrate interest.

Should I optimize for the coding challenges?

Review core data structures, algorithms, and principles but don’t over-index on tricky riddles. The focus is assessing real-world engineering competence. Demonstrate your thinking process clearly.

What is the engineering culture like?

Engineers praise the collaborative, transparent culture that empowers them to build complex systems. There is a strong emphasis on mentorship, learning, and diversity. However, some growing pains exist around structure and communication as the company scales.

Are You Ready?

With diligent preparation using these insider tips and sample questions, you can master the Carta interview process for software roles. Be ready to discuss your familiarity with Carta’s mission, showcase your hands-on engineering skills, and emphasize your collaborative spirit. You’ll be one step closer to joining this rocketship startup transforming equity management!