visa_vik · 3 replies
interviewing at Coinbase in a few weeks for a mid-level backend role and I'm getting nervous about the domain question. I've done fintech (payment rails, some KYC stuff) but I've never worked on anything blockchain-native. is 'I understand the concept of distributed ledgers and settlement finality' enough, or do they actually quiz you on Ethereum internals or whatever? I don't want to fake it but I also don't want to study the wrong thing.
for eng roles, you don't need to know Solidity or anything on-chain. what they actually care about is whether you've thought about eventual consistency in money movement, which fintech background covers. read the Coinbase engineering blog, specifically the posts on their transaction system. one afternoon of reading is probably enough to frame your experience in their vocabulary.
ok that's genuinely reassuring. the engineering blog angle is smart, I'll do that. thanks.
confirming corp_refugee's take. fintech background is probably a plus. the crypto knowledge bar is higher for product and protocol-adjacent roles. for backend infra/API work it's more 'do you get high-stakes money movement' than 'do you know the mempool.'