The interview process is of Three rounds.First one is HR and second is more like Technical Managerial round.Then there is home take away coding challenge and after that , there is Technical round.
I applied online. I interviewed at Schibsted (Estocolmo, ) in Jun 2025
Interview
2-Step process: 45min HM interview + 90min on site technical interview.
HM part asks the typical questions to see overall fit and general verbal competence. The technical interview part is designed to assess technical fit and is made up of two parts: 1) System Design and 2) Coding session with a skeleton where you have to implement couple of functions.
Technical interview was a very negative experience as it was very difficult to communicate with the engineers on any level. They basically ask Data engineers to interview ML engineers. What can possibly go wrong?
The technical interview had nothing to do with Machine learning, and started by asking how to implement a paywall for a newspaper. Once you call them out about where's the ML part, they say "imagine instead of visit counter there is an ML blackbox". Scoping the system design was also very difficult as they didn't want to answer any of my questions.
For the coding part, you have to use your laptop. They give you a link with the code skeleton where you can edit it. You could not run your code, it was plaintext style, no syntax highlighting whatsoever.
Amongst others, I got asked what is a "list set". Unfortunately, this data structure does not exist. After providing textbook answers to what is a list and what is a set instead, the interviewer was still confused.
About the end of the interview, they said that in this team they don't do any ML, just plumbing work for those who provide them with models.
Interview questions [4]
Question 1
Implement a paywall for Aftonbladet (system design)