Wayfair Interview Experience for SWE

I recently interviewed for the Software Development Engineer in Test (SDET) role at Wayfair and wanted to share the questions I encountered. Keep in mind that Wayfair is a large company, and your interview panel may differ based on the team you’re being interviewed for. In my case, it was the Supply Chain and Engineering Team (Transportation).

Technical Phone Interview:

They asked one question: Given an array of weights and a target weight, determine if the array contains two values that sum up to the target weight.

Example: Array [1, 2, 5, 6, 9], Target 10 → True

Follow-up Questions:

Explore alternative ways to solve this problem.

Write test cases for your logic.

Discuss handling large input data.

SQL Questions:

Covered topics like JOINS (different types), GROUP BY, and HAVING CLAUSE.

Along with this, they used sample data provided by the interviewer.

First Round: Cultural Fit

Started the round with the question: Describe a situation where you developed a scrappy solution. Along with this they asked me to follow questions as well:

Explain why you’re interested in Wayfair and what you know about the company.

Share a difficult technical problem you’ve faced in your career and how you solved it.

Second Round: Object-Oriented Design

They told me to Design classes and interfaces for an automated parking garage.

She demonstrated an understanding of object-oriented design principles.

Third Round: System Design

I asked a question to Design a check-in application similar to Instagram (users tagging places) and Tested scalability and efficiency in system design.

Fourth Round: Database Design

They focused on designing a database for a platform like Netflix or IMDb.

In this round, they assessed schema design and optimization knowledge.

Conclusion:

Although I wasn’t offered, the experience taught me valuable lessons. Prepare well, stay positive, and keep learning from each interview opportunity!