How we interview software engineers
At Mechanize, we interview software engineer candidates through a short remote process that can usually be completed within a few days.
The process is designed to test the skills the job requires: making rapid progress in unfamiliar codebases, using coding agents effectively, understanding your own code, and making good technical decisions under time constraints.
There are 3 stages, consisting of 5 hours in total.
Stage 1: Intro call (30 minutes)
One of our recruiters will have a call with you to discuss your background and experience, walk through what we do at Mechanize, and answer any questions you have about the company or the role.
The goal is to make sure there is a plausible fit before either side spends more time.
Stage 2: Take-home project (4 hours)
We ask you to implement a web app within 3 hours. You are strongly encouraged to use AI coding tools to help you.
Afterwards, one of our engineers will take a 1 hour call with you and ask you questions about the code you produced.
The goal is to assess whether you’re capable of making rapid progress on software engineering tasks and whether you understand your own code.
We record this call so that people involved in the hiring process can review it. Recordings are used only for hiring evaluation.
Stage 3: Meet the team (30 minutes)
One of our team members (typically our CEO or CTO) will have a call with you. The goal is for us to get to know each other and for you to ask any questions you have about the role or the company.
What we look for
We are looking for engineers who can produce high-quality work quickly.
In practice, that means quickly understanding unfamiliar codebases, using coding agents effectively, knowing when to intervene, and understanding the code well enough to explain what changed and why.
Strong candidates notice when a solution is brittle, incomplete, or only works by accident. They can debug subtle failures that agents do not resolve on their own, explain technical tradeoffs clearly, and reason about what made the task difficult.
Earlier versions of our process put more weight on rapid technical recall. We have changed the process as we learned which types of interviews predict performance on the job. The current process puts more weight on realistic engineering output and understanding code.
Offers
If you pass all three stages, we will likely make you an offer to work at Mechanize as a software engineer. We encourage you to start as soon as possible, and we can usually accommodate a start date as early as the day after you receive your offer.
Before you apply, you can also read about what working at Mechanize is like.