At AuthZed, we are looking for engineers who thrive in the intersection of distributed systems, open source, and high velocity startup life. We are looking for engineers who are not only technically strong, but are a great addition to our culture.
Our engineering interview process is built around three distinct pillars:
- The Background Panel: A deep dive into your past experience and technical decision-making.
- The Technical Skills Panel: A practical evaluation of your ability to build and reason about systems (don't worry, this isn't an abstract LeetCode grind).
- The Culture Panel: A conversation focused on how you collaborate, your drive for ownership, and how you'll add to our team dynamics.
This is the first post in a series where we'll break down each pillar of our interview process. In this post, we're going to focus on the background panel.
Who We're Looking For
Before you prep, it helps to know what signals we're tuned into. If you've spent any time on our blog or digging through the SpiceDB codebase, you'll notice a few recurring themes that define our team:
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High Agency & Ownership: As a remote-first startup, we value the ability to spot a problem, scope a solution, and drive it to completion without waiting for a perfect spec.
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Pragmatic Perfectionism: We love elegant code, but "done is better than perfect." We want engineers who know when to build a robust system and when a "good enough" solution is the right move for the business today.
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Exceptional Communicators: Our culture is written-first. Whether it's a design doc or a panel interview, your ability to explain complex technical issues in plain English is key.
What to Expect: A Collaborative Deep Dive
The format is straightforward: you'll meet with two of our engineers for about an hour. We walk through your resume chronologically, starting with your most recent role - since that's usually where your most relevant technical experience lives.
Think of this as a working session rather than a test. We want to hear about your specific responsibilities and the tangible impact you had on the team. The meat of the conversation happens when we dive into your projects. We'll ask you to pick one or more significant challenges and walk us through them from ideation to production.
Going Deep on Technical Detail
When you describe a project, don't stay at the surface level. We want to understand the "why" behind the "what."
Be prepared to explain the problem you were solving and the specific architecture you designed. We love hearing about the components you chose - whether it's a specific database decision or a messaging queue - and why they were the right fit for the job.
We're looking for "signals" of your technical ownership. If you hit a massive bottleneck during implementation or a distributed systems failure in production, tell us how you debugged it and what you changed to fix it.
How to Prepare
The best way to prep is to treat your career history like a technical doc. Review your past architectures and be ready to "whiteboard" them verbally or via a screen share.
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Prepare Your Top Projects: Don't leave it to chance. Identify 2-3 projects from your recent experience that best demonstrate your technical depth and ownership. Having these ready to go allows you to drive the conversation toward your strongest work.
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Use a Structure: The STAR method (Situation, Task, Action, Result) is a great baseline, but dial up the technical volume.
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Recall the Trade-offs: For every major decision, remember what you didn't choose and why.
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Be Honest About the Mess: Engineering is rarely perfect. We value candidates who can candidly discuss what went wrong and what they learned.
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Anticipate follow-ups: We're going to poke at the edges of your decisions - not to trip you up, but to see if you've considered the trade-offs inherent in engineering.
Structure Your Answers for Success
Start with a high-level overview of the project's goal to give us context. Then, move quickly into the technical implementation and the specific hurdles you faced.
Focus on your individual contribution. While we value teamwork and mentorship, this panel is specifically designed to assess your personal technical skill set and professional growth.
In short: be clear, be detailed, and don't be afraid to get into the weeds. We're engineers, and we're genuinely excited to hear how you solve hard problems.
Stay tuned for the next posts in this series, where we'll dive into the Technical Skills Panel and the Culture Panel.