Engineering Interview Prep Guide

Note: This guide includes prep for all engineering interview types—please refer only to the sections relevant to your scheduled interviews.

Interview Timeline

Recruiter Phone Screen

Initial conversation to understand your background and interest in Vercel.

Hiring Manager Interview

The interview will consist of a conversation with the Hiring Manager. This will be an opportunity to explore your experience, interest in the role, and ask questions about Vercel.

Depending on the role, this interview may also include a coding session. If applicable, please refer to the "Data Structures and Algorithms" section below.

Note: Your candidate portal will specify if a coding session is included.

Collaboration Stage

Technical Interviews
Please refer to the interview types below for guidance on technical interviews.

Vercel Chats (if applicable)
These conversations are more exploratory and do not require specific preparation. Your recruiter can share more details on what to expect.

Leadership Interview

If applicable, you will meet with a senior leader to discuss your vision for working with Vercel.

Final Decision

We'll get back to you promptly with next steps.

Interview Types

Fullstack Coding Challenge

Develop a full stack application in your preferred tools and languages.

In this interview, a Vercel engineer will introduce a set of functionality for you to implement as a web application.
You will implement this on your own machine using whatever tools and languages you like.
The problem space will not require anything beyond a standard web framework. You will not need to stand up databases or any other external infrastructure.
You should come prepared with a functional web app that has a /ping route that responds with a webpage with 'Pong' on it.
You should share your screen while you work. We want to understand your own design, debugging, and problem-solving decisions so please note that AI tools are not permitted during the interview.
Throughout the interview the interviewer will be available for any questions you may have, support you through any roadblocks you run into, and will regularly check in on progress.
After the interview, we ask that you upload your project to share with the recruiter you have been working with. This can be uploaded as a GitHub repository or a ZIP file on a storage provider like Google Drive or Dropbox.

Deep Dive

Discuss your impact and technical ability with evidence from past projects.

In this interview, you'll walk us through one or two engineering projects that you played a meaningful role in. We're looking to understand how you think, build, and ship-especially how you balance shipping velocity, quality, and impact. Note this is a conversational interview, not a presentation.
The best projects are ones where you had direct experience with at least some phases of the research, design, implementation, and launch lifecycle.
You don't need to bring us a perfect project. We're more interested in your problem-solving process and learnings than a flawless outcome. If something didn't land as expected, that's okay—we're interested in your thinking, decision-making, how you navigated the inevitable challenges that arose, and what you learned.
For each project, we'd love to hear:
- The environment and context you were operating in – e.g., startup vs. large org, monolith vs. microservices, team size, internal process constraints
- The problem you were solving, and how it was scoped or prioritized.
- The approach and tradeoffs you made to move quickly. How did you prioritize competing demands while maintaining speed?
- The impact of your work. How did you measure success? What were the results?
- What you learned from the experience, especially around tradeoffs or decisions you'd approach differently.

Reverse Deep Dive

Learn a real Vercel system and provide design guidance.

In this interview, a Vercel engineer will introduce you to a piece of software or infrastructure that was (or is) in production at Vercel. You will then be asked to evaluate that system.
We will want you to identify potential or real issues with the design of the system presented, and suggest solutions or changes to the system to mitigate those issues.
We will be using https://excalidraw.com to present the system and collaborate on changes. The URL for your interview will be provided by the interviewer.

System Design

Design a new system from base principles.

In this interview, a Vercel engineer will introduce a set of functionality and ask you to produce a design which implements the requirements.
You will describe your design decisions in diagrams or text in a shared editor.
The problem space in this exercise tends to involve technologies used by the role you are interviewing for.
We use https://excalidraw.com for diagramming and https://rustpad.io for when diagrams are insufficient. The URL for your interview will be provided by the interviewer.

Data Structures and Algorithms

Solve a practical problem in your preferred language.

In this interview, a Vercel engineer will describe a problem, which you will implement a solution to.
You can use any language you like, and we will be evaluating your ability to express correct solutions in that language; but we're not expecting perfection — missing semicolons, typos, and hand-waved APIs are fine.
While these problems require data structures and algorithms, we avoid brain-teaser or puzzle style problems. They are practical problems that we have come across in building Vercel.
We use https://rustpad.io for this interview which provides basic syntax highlighting for all mainstream languages. The URL for your interview will be provided by the interviewer.

Resources

Interview Recording
At Vercel, we are committed to radical transparency, continuous improvements and eliminating bias from hiring decisions.
To support this and ensure we are able to focus on you, not on taking notes, this interview might be recorded using brighthire.ai. If you wish to opt out of your interview being recorded using BrightHire, click here.
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How To Prepare