Interview Guide for FrontEnd Engineering

This guide has been created to help you prepare for your upcoming interviews – we want to be as transparent as possible in our hiring process as we value your time.

Man smiling at his colleague in a busy office

Interviewing process at Deliveroo consists of 2 active stages for candidates and a passive stage where successful candidates are allocated to teams.

Stage 1: HackerRank Test

This is your first technical step where we assess your coding and problem-solving skills. Don’t worry too much, this is a home assessment so you can complete it in a comfortable environment at your convenience.

Stage 2: Full Loop

This is when we dive deeper into the main components of the role. Each component represents a different skill required for the role.

You can expect 2-3 different conversations including topics like:

Coding interview
Architecture interview
Behavioural interview

Understand the full interview process

Tech Screen - Hackerrank

This is a 70-minute take-home challenge in which we want to assess your general coding skills. Your recruiter will share a link to our Hackerrank task where you will be able to do all of your work.

General Info

We will ask you to complete 2 problems within a 70 min timeline depending on the question set. (check before you start). The coding problems will be related to:

React (Debugging)
REST API

You will be able to decide which task to do first but keep in mind that the problems are progressively difficult.
You will be able to jump back and forth between problems, so don’t panic if an improvement comes to mind unexpectedly.
We do care for quality, keep that in mind. This is not one of those assessments where you have to do a lot to complete it quickly.
There is no need to write tests, HackerRank will run tests and checks to see how many of them your solution passed.
Heads up: There is no debugger on this platform. You may have to find another way to see what your code is doing.

A few things to cover before you start

Familiarise yourself with the Hackerrank environment first so you can do your best on the day. Make sure you check both sections, before and during the interview. The goal is to eliminate any unnecessary surprises. We want you to focus only on the task at hand.
The tasks are timed so make sure you set your working environment accordingly and you won’t be disturbed.
A significant percentage of your success will rely on system familiarity. It may be a good idea to do a warm-up task beforehand so you are in the right frame of mind and have a good understanding of how everything works.

This is no secret but the interviewing environment is slightly different from your day-to-day work. With this in mind, make sure you spend some time on preparation. Those who practice, perform better.

Take a look at the Interview Preparation Kit and warm up a little before your big day.

Coding Interview

This 60 min long interview is set-up to assess your coding skills, approach to problem-solving, communication skills and ability to work under time constraints. The conversation will start with a short introduction.

After that we will move to the technical part of the interview where we will be building on the code sample we’ve sent you. Using the programming language you feel strongest in between JavaScript and TypeScript, we will ask you to complete a couple of tasks and explain your thought process. Please make sure you open the ZIP file provided and follow the instructions to get the sample working in your preferred IDE prior to your interview. This is not a take-home test, but rather a base for you to use during the in-person interview.

Interview Structure

Short intro (5-10 min)

Pair programming session (45 mins)

Short Outro and Questions (10 mins)

Add features to the sample code | 40 – 45 min | task 1

The task which you will focus on is a relatively short exercise where you will have to show your coding skills, specifically front-end coding skills. We suggest you to brush up on those to make your skills shine during the interview. We don’t expect you to complete the entire task, but keep the time in mind. More practice equals less stress.

Note | The code provided to you will use React, which is what we use at Deliveroo for all of our Front-end development. If you’d like to use a different framework, you will have to provide this.

Assessment rubrics | What interviewers look at

Coding – try to complete the tasks by using the framework (React) to its full potential. We’d love for you to teach us something about React we didn’t know prior!

Problem Solving – there is a time limit associated with this interview, try to get the main task accomplished even if it means you’re not producing the best code. Be sure to communicate this.

Communication – Ask questions, discuss your thoughts or any problems you’re having. Engineering is collaborative – so is the interview. If there is not enough time to code it out, at least go through it verbally.

Testing – testing code is important and something we do at Deliveroo. Show us how you do testing or talk through it if there isn’t enough time.

We are interested in learning how you work and solve problems therefore we expect this submission to be fully done by yourself. In this instance we say no to AI – all AI-generated submissions will be rejected.

The following are not allowed during a live coding interview:

Ask ChatGPT or similar to explain compiler or runtime errors or write code.
Use Copilot or similar to explain or generate code

Architecture Interview

During this 60 min interview you will collaborate with an engineer to discuss the aspects of building a production-ready UI. You will be given an image of a sample UI and asked open-ended questions about how you’d go about building it.

All the questions are fairly broad – we aren’t looking for a tick box exercise in the answers, nor are we expecting you to solve every aspect of the problem, but want to see how you think about problems. Interviewers would like to see how you work with understanding the problem, presenting an idea of a solution, and understanding how it works and can see it being a part of a bigger system.

Treat your interviewer as a fellow engineer and Product manager combined and do feel free to clarify any requirement that may help you decide between different designs.

Please be prepared with a whiteboarding tool, as you may want to use this to convey your thoughts.

Some of the areas you will cover are:

Understanding of HTML, CSS, and JS
Understanding of Accessibility
Understanding of the Audience and their Browsers
Security
Performance

Tips:

Communicate, ask questions, discuss your thoughts, and speak about any problems you’re having. Engineering is collaborative – so is the interview.
A complete answer is good but is not necessary. Your thought process is more important.
Start at the high level and work down to the detail. Try to cover the subject in detail where possible.

Behavioural Interview

We are looking for people who are not only great at what they do, but we are also interested in how they impact the environments around them and work as a team.

This interview looks at how you handled specific challenges in the past to assess if you will be a good match for the role. Some of the areas we address are:

Communication
Team management
Leadership
Problem-solving
Flexibility and can-do attitude Initiatives and growth mindset
Organisation and self-development
Decision making

We care about our culture as much as we care about our products! Have a look at our Deliveroo Values:

Live and breathe our marketplace

Being deeply immersed in all sides of our marketplace, and each and every neighbourhood we serve.

Play to win

Setting bold targets and seeing them through with tenacity, creativity and grit.

Celebrate difference

Advocating for respect and fairness for everybody, understanding we are all individuals on a unique journey.

Champion big and small innovations

Innovating no matter what our role is, and celebrating achievements no matter the size.

Obsess about operational excellence

Leaving things better than we found them, investing both our time and money in the things customers care about.

Be curious and intellectually honest

Thinking deeply and debating each other with respect while keeping our biases in check.

Take a look at our few examples

Tell us about a time when you failed to meet a deadline. What did you fail to do? What did you learn? Before answering have a think about:

The root cause.
Why did it seem like a good idea at the time?
How did you apply what you learned afterwards?

Describe to us a specific task or a challenge that you were facing and how you made sure in successfully completing it. What were the key factors of this success?

Be clear up front about your objectives and wider context.
Reasons you chose those particular strategies and tools to complete it.
Any measures you had in place to monitor your progression?
Main obstacles that you had to address and things learned along the way.

Provide an example of the time when you had a difference of opinions with one of your colleagues regarding a project you both worked on and how you arrived at the conclusion.

Specify the situation, differences of opinions and other important context.
What data, tools or information did you use to support your idea?
How did this discussion end and impact your future cooperation?

Additional Tips

Listen Carefully

Rephrasing questions or asking for clarity is okay, as is telling the interviewer you want time to collect your thoughts.

Be Concise

Make sure you’re answering the question and not using a prepared example that isn’t applicable or related to the questions. (the STAR method tends to work here nicely)

Thoughtful Questions

Come prepared with thoughtful questions (e.g., team priorities, culture, etc.).

Be Comfortable

Interviewing is a two-way street, so we want you to feel comfortable and understand how a role at Deliveroo could help you grow your career.

Quick Links

Mock Interviews