Given take home task. I misunderstood the brief - went for speed of implementation rather than optimization. Task was interesting and I was given quality feedback afterwards despite not passing the round
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Encord (London, England) in Apr 2026
Interview
A take home test. My main issue with the company is that I've spent time completing the take home test, and they came back to me with a run-of-the-mill rejection letter.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Encord (London, England) in Dec 2025
Interview
The first stage is a chat that isn’t very technical, mostly behavioural questions with a technical angle, such as describing projects you’ve worked on.
Next, there is a take home assessment. It takes longer than they suggest. The task isn’t extremely hard but is also not straightforward.
After that you’re invited to a live coding round based on the take home assignment. They advise it is important to build as much as possible as quickly as possible but it is not exactly true. During the interview they insist on algorithmic approach instead. I found this to be a waste of time as they claim to value people who can work fast, but then reject simple and effective solutions in favour of textbook algorithms. This ends up filtering out strong practice driven candidates in favour of people who have the time to grind leetcode.