went through the full Retool eng loop over the past 3 weeks. wanted to write this up while it's fresh.
recruiter screen was 20 min, very low pressure. she was clear about the process and timeline, which I appreciated. then a 45 min technical screen with a senior IC. they had me write a basic component with some state management, then asked me to add a feature that touched a shared data layer. nothing fancy but they cared a lot about my naming conventions and how I decomposed the problem.
take-home was 3 hours. I built a small internal dashboard with filtering and a couple of mock API calls. they gave you a realistic prompt (something like 'you're building a tool for a support team to view ticket statuses'). the rubric felt like they wanted to see how you handle incomplete specs more than whether your code was perfect.
onsite had 4 sessions: system design, coding, a product/values round, and one with the hiring manager. system design asked me to design a configurable form builder at scale. I had to think about how different field types, validation rules, and conditional logic interact. no clear 'right answer' but they pushed back when I glossed over edge cases.
the values/culture round was actually the one that tripped me up a bit. they asked specific questions about times I had to push back on a decision or navigate ambiguity. not hostile but they clearly wanted real stories, not abstractions.
overall the loop was well-run. interviewers were prepared. got an offer 5 days after the onsite.