Engineering Manager Interview (30-45 min, video)

In this session, you’ll meet with one of our Engineering Managers for a deep-dive into your technical experience and ways of working. We’ll cover:

A walkthrough of a backend system you’ve built or worked on — including the problem it solved, challenges you faced, and your specific contributions.
Examples of how you’ve taken initiative or solved problems independently — we’re looking for signs of ownership and autonomy.
Your experience with development practices, methodologies, and how your current team is structured.
For more senior roles (L4+), we may also explore your experience with distributed systems and leading teams or projects to solve complex technical challenges.

We aim to keep this conversational — we want to understand how you think, collaborate, and lead in engineering environments.

Stage 2

Pair Programming Session (60 mins, video)

At FundApps, we use pair programming as both a day-to-day collaboration tool and a key part of our interview process. It helps us understand not only how you code, but how you think, communicate, and learn.

You can use either Java, C# or Python, and we’ll clarify whether you're comfortable working in C# moving forward.

You won’t be expected to know everything, solve everything perfectly, or have commercial C# experience. What we care about is how you approach problems.

🔎 What We’re Looking For

We’ll be focusing primarily on:

Problem Breakdown: Can you take a loosely defined problem and break it into smaller, solvable parts?
Technical Competence: Do you write clean, logical code? Can you make reasonable trade-offs?
Communication: Do you explain your thinking clearly? Are you open to input and collaboration?
Curiosity + Learning: How do you handle something new or unfamiliar?
Sustainable Engineering: How do you think about the solution’s behaviour in production, and its maintainability and adaptability?’

We pair program regularly at FundApps, but we know it’s not everyone’s ideal way to work. So don’t worry—we’re assessing your thinking, not your polish.

⚒️ What You’ll Be Working With

You’ll be given a small, real-world-inspired problem in the financial compliance space. We’ll ask you to write a short program that:

Works with realistic domain data that involves time-based considerations".
Requires basic data structures (think: lists, objects, loops, filters)
Has a real-world flavour and works with realistic domain terms (drawn from the financial compliance space such as “portfolio”, “market value”, etc.)

🤖 Using AI Tools During the Session

We actively encourage the use of AI tools — just like you would in a real engineering environment. You’re welcome to use:

In-IDE tools like GitHub Copilot
External tools like ChatGPT or Claude (e.g., to ask questions, generate code, or debug)

We’re not just looking for how well you can write every line by hand — instead, we’re interested in how you work with tools, make decisions, and solve problems.

✅ Tips for Success

Think aloud – Share your reasoning and ask questions if anything’s unclear.
Start simple – You don’t need the perfect design upfront. Break down the problem and build iteratively.
Handle ambiguity – Some edge cases may be fuzzy. Talk us through your assumptions.
Ask about trade-offs – Whether it’s performance, readability, or future-proofing, showing that you consider these is a plus.
Check AI output - don’t blindly rely on it!

Stage 3

Final Interview & Team Meet

You’ll join us in the office for a 90-minute session with two of our engineers. We’ll dive into your previous experience and contributions (so come prepared to talk about them and think about which you’re most proud of), followed by a system design exercise. As part of that, we’ll ask you to talk through a system you’re currently working on and how you approached its design.