Summary
Interviewed with Bolt for a Senior Backend Engineer role in Estonia. The process included a coding round, code review, system design, and behavioral interview. Received a job offer with relocation assistance.
Full Experience
Thought I’d share my experience interviewing with Bolt. I’m based out of India with ~8 years of experience as a software engineer.
Recruiter reached out on LinkedIn → I sent my resume → a screening call (30 mins) got scheduled.
…except recruiter didn’t join the first time 😅 Sent an email, rescheduled → second time happened smoothly.
Screening was pretty chill:
- Resume walkthrough
- Previous roles
- Relocation interest (Estonia)
- Some basic tech discussion
He then asked me to schedule the first coding round.
Round 1: Coding Interview (75 mins)
First 10 mins:
- Intro + questions around testing
- Discussed my past projects
Next 60 mins:
Hackerrank coding (can choose any language). I chose Python.
They gave a data stream-based problem where:
- Integers were continuously coming in
- Some operation had to be performed on the most recent N elements
- Then 2–3 extensions were added to change how results should be computed
- Final extension involved computing a statistical value from the stream
- Last part was mostly discussion because time ran out
Last 5 mins:
Questions from me about the team and work culture.
✅ Outcome: Was asked to schedule Code Review round the very next day.
Round 2: Code Review / Refactor (75 mins)
Before the interview, the recruiter asked which language I prefer. I picked Python.
They gave me:
- A small set of APIs
- Code with intentional design flaws
Task: Review and improve the code to make it production ready. They were not expecting production-working code, but wanted to see:
"How would you FIX this if it came to production?"This round was all about thinking like a senior engineer.
✅ Outcome: Was asked to schedule System Design round within a day.
Round 3: System Design (60 mins)
Bolt sends a prep guide explaining how they want candidates to structure answers — follow it.
Problem:
Design a write-heavy system with minimal reads. Only 2 read queries had to be supported.
They cared a lot about:
- Tradeoffs
- Data modeling
- Scaling
- Failure handling
- Storage choices
This round went well.
✅ Outcome: Recruiter confirmed in 2 days final Team Fit round will happen.
Prep Call with Recruiter (30 mins)
The recruiter discussed feedback from previous rounds with additional discussions in the following topics:
- My salary expectations
- Team Fit round expectations
Round 4: Team Fit / Behavioural (90 mins)
Questions were mostly:
- Past challenges
- How I work with teams
- Ownership mindset
- Failures and learnings
Last 15 mins:
Only my questions — culture, growth, roadmap etc.
✅ Outcome: Final Feedback call scheduled next day.
Final Outcome 🎉
In feedback call:
We are moving forward with the offer and full relocation assistance.
Couldn’t ask for a better ending.
Interview Questions (2)
They gave a data stream-based problem where:
- Integers were continuously coming in
- Some operation had to be performed on the most recent N elements
- Then 2–3 extensions were added to change how results should be computed
- Final extension involved computing a statistical value from the stream
- Last part was mostly discussion because time ran out
Problem:
Design a write-heavy system with minimal reads. Only 2 read queries had to be supported.
They cared a lot about:
- Tradeoffs
- Data modeling
- Scaling
- Failure handling
- Storage choices
Preparation Tips
Focus on design thinking, be strong with communication, practice explaining tradeoffs clearly, and don't rush coding — explain your thought process.