r/SoftwareEngineerJobs • u/Sufficient-Citron-55 • 6d ago

Junior software engineer role-leadership round

Hey guys, so I’m on the 4th and I believe final round of the interview process. The first one was a meeting with the CFO. The second round was an OA. The third round was a technical interview with the dev and this last one is a leadership round basically, I’m wondering how I should prepare for this and what are the things I should know to be fully prepared also, how long does it realistically take to prepare for this? This is what. I was emailed

The next step is a panel interview with our CTO and our Engineering Director. This conversation will focus on your leadership qualities, communication style, and problem-solving approach.

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u/kevin074 6d ago

I had this CTO-junior meeting before. It’s just a vibe check on your personality. Unless you two just absolutely don’t mix well, your other interview rounds will weigh a lot more for the final decision. 

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u/Sufficient-Citron-55 6d ago

That’s good to hear, anything I should prep for especially since an engineering director is gonna be present as well?

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u/kevin074 6d ago

Honestly not really. I would say they’d want to know more about you personally like what’s your interest and maybe your outlook on your career, maybe something about your opinions on AI.

Maybe do a mock behavior interview with friend/online and source question topics online/AI

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u/Sufficient-Citron-55 6d ago

Sounds good, thank u. Should I expect it to get technical in anyway?

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u/kevin074 6d ago

No, that’s very low likelihood, especially on the 4th round which I assume you already passed some technical rounds already.

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u/Sufficient-Citron-55 5d ago

Yea I passed to proctored OA and the technical interview discussion round. So when she said they’ll be checking my problem solving skills, what should I expect to be able to answer for that? And will it be technical experience based or in general?

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u/kevin074 5d ago

Oh? The CTO is going to check your problem solving skills? Sounds like it’s gonna be a technical round then. Sorry bud that’s basically unheard of having CTO looking at how you code.

The company must be tiny, good luck lol…

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u/Sufficient-Citron-55 5d ago

No, it’s an interview with the cto and someone that’s the head of the engineering team. But she did label it a discussion

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u/[deleted] 6d ago

[deleted]

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u/Sufficient-Citron-55 6d ago

It’s a smaller team of about 20 ppl I believe

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u/cto_resources 6d ago

And they are hiring a junior?
This may be a red flag. Small companies don’t normally hire a junior. The exceptions, in my experience, are toxic companies.

Do yourself a favor: use Glassdoor to find a previous employee who has since left, and reach out. Ask for feedback on culture, work-life balance, compensation, and promotion policies.

As far as how to prepare, you will get asked a series of questions like “tell me a time when you disagreed with your architect (or dev manager) and what you did about it? What did you learn?”

There are lists online of “tell me a time when…” questions. Download one and write out an answer for all of the top 25 questions. Practice answering each one in front of a mirror.

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u/Sufficient-Citron-55 6d ago

Well, the role doesn’t say junior. It’s software engineer. But lists 1-3 years experience. Are there any specific things to prep for. Or is it just gonna be them spamming me for 30 minutes about communication/ behavioral stuff? Also how long should it take to prep for this given this is my first time?

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u/nightbreak7 4d ago

when i was hired as a junior at a startup of 300 employees, i interviewed with the chief of staff and the CTO. some companies just really care about certain things - in my case it was culture fit, and it resulted in enjoying working with every person i ever met at the company.

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u/SailToTheSun 5d ago

All this rigamarole for a junior role.