Rippling’s Interview Process & Questions

The info below is based on conversations with Rippling engineers.

Rippling's Interview Process for Software Engineers: 4 Steps

Mid to senior-level engineers interviewing at Rippling can expect the following process:

• Recruiter call (15-30 minutes)
• Technical phone screen (1 hour)
• Hiring manager screen (1 hour)
• Onsite (3-4 hours)

General Tips:

• Rippling places a big emphasis on testing and running code during interviews
• Grinding on LeetCode medium and hard questions will help - you will need to move fast!
• System design round is used for leveling

Rippling has a decentralized hiring process, which means that you interview for a specific role and will most likely be interviewed by people from that team, including a hiring manager. They seem to have recently moved to a decentralized process from a centralized one.

The entire process takes about 4-6 weeks but can be completed in as little as two weeks. Getting a referral might help you skip certain steps like online assessments and initial recruiter screens, but this seems to vary by team.

AI Usage

AI use in Rippling interviews is optional, and you can use any tool you’d like, but they will use a different rubric to evaluate your performance depending on your choice. The interview question won’t change either way.

Step 1: Recruiter Call

Rippling’s recruiter call lasts up to 30 minutes, and, if you’ve gotten referred in, it isn’t an assessment. The recruiter will introduce you to the company and walk you through the interview process. Without a referral, you may get some light behavioral questions.

It’s really important, at this stage, to not reveal your salary expectations or where you are in the process with other companies. We’ve written a detailed post about salary negotiation that lays out exactly what to say if recruiters pressure you to name the first number.

Step 2: Technical Phone Screen

Rippling’s technical phone screen lasts about an hour and is conducted in CodePair. It will feature LeetCode-style questions. We will cover what we know of their question style in the section called “Types of Interview Questions to Expect at Rippling” below.

Step 3: Hiring Manager Screen

This round can vary depending on team and location. Some hiring managers will use this round to discuss team fit, your background, and the scale and scope of projects you’ve worked on in a general sense.

We’ve heard that other hiring managers will ask you to present a project you’ve worked on and answer questions about it. You will know in advance. If you have to present a project, it’s wise to create slides. You will be asked about workflows and processes, what you were responsible for, what you learned, and what you might do differently. Either way, you will have time to ask questions, so come prepared.

Step 4: Onsite

• Coding (90 mins). This interview will be conducted in either your own IDE with screen-share or in CodePair. For more detail about the kinds of questions to expect, see the Coding section below.
• System design (1 hour). Different teams at Rippling use different tooling here. We’ve even heard of one team asking for sketches to be done on paper! For more detail about the kinds of questions to expect, see the System Design section below.
• Coding (1 hour). This round will be in CodePair. For more info about what questions to expect, see the Coding section below.

Types of Interview Questions to Expect at Rippling

Rippling does ask LeetCode-style questions. Most will be LeetCode medium-level, but we have heard of some harder questions being asked.

Coding

There are two coding interviews during the onsite.

The 90-minute coding interview will have two parts. In the first one, you will be asked to build something. In the second, you will discuss what you built, what you could have done differently, how you would scale it, etc. This interview will be fairly practical. You might be asked to prepare a simple HTTP server and then write some simple REST APIs.

The 1-hour coding interview will be LeetCode-style, but the questions will build on each other. You might be asked to design a data structure where you can get objects, insert objects, and get the average of all the objects in the data structure in a given time.

From one of our users:

“You’ll need to get comfortable with LeetCode medium and hard questions – you won’t have time to figure it out on the day. You need to work at a Meta-like pace.”

Below are the technical topics you’re likely to encounter in Rippling interviews. To compile this list, we did two things. First, we spoke to some current and former Rippling engineers. Then we cross-referenced all the anecdotes we heard with Glassdoor data AND our own data-set of mock interviews:

System Design

You shouldn’t encounter anything too unusual here. You might be asked to design a news recommendation engine, a shopping recommendation engine, or a file-sharing system. The key here is to recognize the tradeoffs between approaches early and articulate them. Do move fast though, as they’ll ask a lot of questions about scaling. They are looking for breadth and depth of system design experience here, and this interview is often used for leveling.

Check out our guide to system design interviews to help you prepare.