Programming Interviews @ Clio
People often ask me why I like working at Clio. I feel like this is a pretty softball question, but I feel strongly about my answer: the people. I work with so many stellar humans.
I think this is a big credit to our hiring process. To this day I'm not entirely sure what all the special ingredients are, but we make a mean stew. We work really hard to make sure there's clarity, you’re set up to do your best, and you can take something useful away from the process.
Engineering interviews at Clio: we run four panels, not counting the initial contact with our amazing Talent team. The four interviews are:
We'll chat about programming in a moment. System design is pretty much what it says on the tin – how do you think through solving a big-picture problem from requirements on down to technical design? Technical leadership is something we expect from all engineering Clions. How do you think about coaching, leading projects, and handling conflict? And the Culture interview is about culture add (not fit!), how do you recover and maintain your best self.
So, the programming interview. I get it, programming interviews suck. They're nerve wracking and no matter how well you do there's a good chance you're going to leave it feeling like you could have done something differently. I felt that way about my programming interview when I joined Clio!
Why are we even asking you to do a programming interview? Well, it's important to us. At Clio we think software engineering fundamentals are important for many roles. It's not just a formality. We want to know that you can throw together some code, you're comfortable with tools, and you're comfortable with detail-level problem solving.
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We do go out of our way to make this interview feel more like a normal day writing code - minus Copilot and the like! We're not here to nit-pick if you forget a method signature, we want to see how you think.
What advice would I give? Well, don't forget to Google things. Look up API documentation - please! All of us here interviewing would be really happy to see that. Did you miss a closing parenthesis somewhere? We'll try to point it out, we don't want to waste time on these kinds of things.
What should you prepare? Well, it's not exactly a LeetCode question, but you could do worse than to practice LeetCode. Practice something, anything if you're not feeling fresh: maybe practice with a friend watching you to emulate an interview environment a bit more. Write some code on a personal project, put Claude away. Write a script to automate something. Work on something small, fresh, outside of your usual work, because that's what you'll be doing in the interview. You might be surprised how often my interview notes contain "if they practice and prepare a bit more, they'll likely pass next time".
Another piece of advice I have is: listen to the interviewer. We will try to help you. We won't give you any answers, but will guide and try to keep you from getting stuck. If I say "hey, what about this thing?" stop and think about it carefully. Most of us have run this interview many times so if we ask a question it's probably because we see something important. Try to think of us as working with you, even though that's easier said than done.
At Clio we work in a very dynamic environment. We are growing rapidly and we are ambitious - that means things change constantly. Do you like the sound of that? Awesome, you'll feel at home here. What does it mean for interviewing? We want to know how you figure things out when you're not sure, and how you handle something you might not have seen before. Think out loud, it helps us a lot. We don't care if you can invert a binary tree in assembly - but we do care if you can use your language of choice to solve something practical you've never seen before.
Clio is a unique company, and a unique team. I mean that very precisely–there is only one. If that sounds interesting to you, please come and apply! We do our very best to make a great interview experience. It's important to us, we think of it as an investment in the long run. We'd love to hear from you.
I feel very fortunate to have come across this guide while preparing for my very first pair programming interview. The emphasis on “thinking out loud” and clear communication really resonates with me—these are skills I’ve come to value through my past experiences as well. Regardless of the outcome, this article has already helped me build a stronger and more effective problem-solving mindset.