Prove you can own a developer infrastructure service end to end at scale, not just use one

Interview prep for a Senior Software Engineer role on Coinbase's Developer Infrastructure group, building and operating the CI, build systems, deployment orchestration, and test infrastructure that every Coinbase engineer relies on. Expect deep technical questions on distributed systems fundamentals, Go proficiency, and full-lifecycle ownership (architecture, observability, SLOs, on-call) of platform services running on Kubernetes/AWS/GitHub Actions/Terraform. Strong answers show measurable impact on engineering productivity metrics like build/CI time and deploy safety.

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What this interview tests

End-to-end ownership: architecture, observability, SLOs, on-call for platform services
Distributed systems fundamentals and Go proficiency
CI/CD, build systems, release tooling, test infrastructure design
Operating at scale with Kubernetes, AWS, GitHub Actions, Terraform
Measuring and improving engineering productivity metrics
Leading cross-cutting technical design and mentoring engineers

Common question themes

Walk through a developer infrastructure service you owned end to end, including SLOs and on-call setup

Design a build/test system that needs to scale reliably across thousands of engineers

Tell me about a time you improved build time, CI time, or deploy safety — how did you measure it

Debug scenario: a CI or deployment pipeline is causing org-wide friction — how do you investigate?

Describe leading a cross-cutting technical design and driving it independently to production

How do you use generative AI responsibly in your day-to-day engineering work?

How candidates describe it

Real Senior Software Engineer interview stories — retold from candidates' public write-ups, with sources.

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Google L3 software engineer interview: phone screen, four coding rounds, and the Googleyness round

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Interviewed February 2024 · Not specified

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