THE hubspot INTERVIEW
Looking to land a job at HubSpot but don’t know what the process looks like?
Well, you’ve come to the right place. Detailed in this post is a look at the timeline of the interview process, preparation guidelines, and what's different or unique about HubSpot's interview process as opposed to other tech companies.
THE hubspot INTERVIEW explained
BACKGROUND
HubSpot is one of the largest CRM (Customer Relationship Management) platforms and is used by hundreds of companies, providing them the tools they need to delight their customers. In this interview, there will be three separate parts to it including: two technical interviews with members of the engineering team, and a behavioral interview with the hiring manager.
HubSpot starts their hiring at L1 which is an entry level position. For an L2 engineer, you should have around 3 years of experience and can expect a base salary of around $142,000 according to levels.fyi.
While HubSpot may not be like a Google or Microsoft, it’s still a great place to work with tons of opportunities and a lot of great people. Let’s see what their interview process looks like.
BEFORE THE INTERVIEW
update your RESUME
Make sure you’ve updated your resume and in particular your LinkedIn profile; use deliverables and metrics when you can as they are concrete examples of what you’ve accomplished. Make sure to be as specific as possible.
PREPARATION
Here is our guide on how to prepare for the coding interview with a 12-week plan.
CHOOSING YOUR LANGUAGE
HubSpot does not require that you know any specific programming language before interviewing for a tech position. However, you should be familiar with the syntax of your preferred language such as Java, Python, C#, C/C++. You should also know some of the languages’ nuances, such as how memory management works, or the most commonly used collections, libraries, etc. Choose one you’re most comfortable with and stick to it.
screen with technical recruiter
After reviewing your resume, you’ll be paired with a recruiter who will be your guide through the interview process at HubSpot. This will be a 30 minute conversation. They may ask you about why you want to work for HubSpot, what your past experiences are, and what technologies you are comfortable with.
It’s important to remember that in this interview, the recruiter is trying to make sure that you are genuinely interested in the position and that you are qualified to do so.
take home test
After the prescreen, you will be given a week to do a coding assessment where you may have to interact with their API (using json parsing and requests). You will have around 3 hours to complete the test. Note here that you will be able to use the language of your choice so be sure to choose the one you are most confident with. After submitting your test, you should hear back within a week.
Note that you shouldn’t expect your typical HackerRank or LeetCode style. It will be data manipulation and API calls.
ON-site interview
If you’ve managed to clear the take home test, your recruiter will set up a time for your onsite (or virtual) interview.
The first round of interviews will be technical which will consist of data structures and algorithms where you can use the language of your choice. For more experienced engineers you can also expect a system design round as well as working with relational databases where you’ll be given application requirements and you’ll have to suggest and implement a possible data model to support it. In both rounds, there will be two engineers interviewing you.
Here’s what HubSpot has to say in their own words:
“Technical interviews typically consist of writing code in your chosen language, designing systems, and discussing your background and passions. We don't ask any trick questions or focus on language minutia. We strongly believe that we should test for the practical skills and abilities which are used on the job. We suggest crafting a working solution rather than optimizing first. Keep in mind that there are often multiple ways to answer a question. Please ask your interviewer clarifying questions and work together with them on the exercises.”
At the end of each technical round, the interviewers will ask you some behavioral questions like, “tell me about a time…”. It’s important here to remember the STAR (Situation, Task, Action, Result) method when framing your answers.
Your final round will be with the Director of Engineering which will be behavioral in nature. You can expect him or her to dive deep into your past projects and they will want to see how you think and how you problem solve. Be sure to spend some time before the interview looking at HubSpot’s values and gathering up all the accomplishments you’re most proud of so you have something concrete in your mind to talk about.
Here are some great interview prep resources:
THE OFFER / NO offer
From on-site to offer will take about another week or two. This is so management can either evaluate other candidates or to draft up your offer letter along with other logistics.
In the event that you don’t receive an offer, you’ll most likely have to wait six months to a year to re-apply. Don’t expect any feedback after your interview, but you can conclude that you either didn’t have enough experience or that it just wasn’t a fit culturally.
If you do receive a job offer, the hiring manager will call you to discuss salary, start date, etc. For more information on how to negotiate your salary visit the following link:
what's different
Take home test
Where most take home tests focus on HackerRank style questions, the HubSpot test is a little more unique where you’ll have to work with API calls and data manipulation.
Need help preparing for the interview?
Check out the Definitive Interview Prep Roadmap,
written and reviewed by real hiring managers.