At Penske Media, a Software Engineer is a vital driver behind some of the world's most influential digital media brands, including Variety, Rolling Stone, Billboard, The Hollywood Reporter, and WWD. Operating at the intersection of media, technology, and culture, you will be responsible for building, optimizing, and scaling the digital platforms that deliver high-impact journalism to millions of global readers daily. The engineering team focuses on creating seamless, high-performance web experiences, robust content management workflows, and scalable backend services that can handle massive traffic spikes during major cultural events like the Grammys, Oscars, or Golden Globes. Unlike traditional tech companies that prioritize abstract algorithmic puzzles, Penske Media values practical, real-world engineering. You will work on a modern, high-traffic tech stack that heavily leverages WordPress VIP, custom PHP development, JavaScript, and cloud infrastructure. Your impact is immediate and highly visible; the code you ship directly shapes how audiences interact with breaking news, multimedia content, and premium digital experiences. This role is ideal for engineers who thrive on solving real-world performance challenges, building clean and maintainable codebases, and collaborating closely with cross-functional partners. It requires a balance of deep technical capability, an appreciation for web standards, and a user-first mindset.
Initial Screen
reportedConversational discussion with the VP of Technology or an Engineering Manager about your background and engineering philosophy.
What to demonstrate
- Conversational discussion with the VP of Technology or an Engineering Manager about your background and engineering philosophy
- Depth in Full-Stack Engineering
How to prepare
- Be able to walk your CV end to end in two minutes, and say why this company specifically.
- Have your salary expectations, notice period and location constraints ready, and ask for the rest of the loop in writing.
Technical Evaluation
reportedConsists of conceptual technical interviews with senior engineers and a practical take-home assignment.
What to demonstrate
- Consists of conceptual technical interviews with senior engineers and a practical take-home assignment
- Depth in Full-Stack Engineering
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: What are the best practices for structuring a custom plugin to ensure security, extensibility, and performance?
- Answer aloud and timed: How do you approach writing unit tests for legacy codebases or custom CMS extensions?
Cross-Functional Discussion
reportedFinal stage involving a discussion with an engineer and a Product Manager to assess communication and collaboration style.
What to demonstrate
- Final stage involving a discussion with an engineer and a Product Manager to assess communication and collaboration style
- Depth in Full-Stack Engineering
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Explain your experience with caching strategies (e.g., Redis, Memcached, Varnish) and how they apply to dynamic content delivery.
- Answer aloud and timed: What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous execution in JavaScript, and when would you use each?
PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.
Prioritize Clean Code Standards
When completing the take-home assignment, strictly follow established coding standards (such as WordPress Coding Standards or PSR). Use clean formatting, write meaningful comments, and structure your code logically.
Write Unit Tests
Even if unit tests are listed as "optional" or "bonus points" on the take-home assignment, always include them. This demonstrates a production-ready mindset and sets you apart from other candidates.
Prepare for Conversational Tech Rounds
Be ready to talk through your past projects in detail. Focus on the why behind your technical decisions, the challenges you faced, and how you measured success.
Be Proactive with Communication
If you experience delays in scheduling or feedback, do not hesitate to reach out to your recruiter. Showing proactive interest helps keep your application top-of-mind.
Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.
How do you optimize database queries and page load times for a website experiencing massive concurrent traffic
How do you optimize database queries and page load times for a website experiencing massive concurrent traffic spikes?
Approach
- Say what the runtime actually does before reasoning about the code.
- Name what is shared across threads and what owns each piece of state.
- Identify the window where an invariant is briefly untrue.
- Distinguish a value from a reference to it, and say which one you handed out.
Follow-up
- What happens if two callers reach this at the same time?
- Where could this allocate more than you expect?
What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous execution in JavaScript, and when would you use ea
What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous execution in JavaScript, and when would you use each?
Approach
- Say what the runtime actually does before reasoning about the code.
- Name what is shared across threads and what owns each piece of state.
- Identify the window where an invariant is briefly untrue.
- Distinguish a value from a reference to it, and say which one you handed out.
Follow-up
- What happens if two callers reach this at the same time?
- Where could this allocate more than you expect?
Collapse a redelivered event batch into per-aggregate high-water marks
You drain a batch of up to 5,000,000 events, each (aggregate_id BIGINT, aggregate_version INT, event_type, payload). The log guarantees order within one aggregate only; the batch merges 64 partitions, and a relay failover has redelivered a range, so an older version for an aggregate can appear after a newer one. Given a map of last_applied_version per aggregate, produce the events worth applying, at most one per (aggregate_id, version), plus the count discarded. Target O(n) time. State the memory for 2,000,000 distinct aggregates and what you do when it does not fit.
Approach
- One pass, one hash map from aggregate_id to the highest version kept, and a discard counter. An event whose version is at or below last_applied_version for its aggregate is dropped without further work, which is the whole reason the event carries its version rather than a delta. O(n) expected time, O(d) space in distinct aggregates.
- Keep the maximum, never the last occurrence. The redelivered range means the final appearance of an aggregate in the batch can be an older version than one seen earlier in the same batch, so last-wins applies stale state over newer state and the projection regresses with no error anywhere.
- Cost the memory instead of calling it large: an 8-byte key plus a 4-byte version is 12 bytes of payload, and an open-addressed table held at a 0.7 load factor costs roughly 17 bytes per entry before per-slot metadata, so 2,000,000 aggregates is tens of megabytes in a native layout and several times that in a runtime that boxes both key and value.
- If the distinct set exceeds memory, partition on hash(aggregate_id) mod P and reduce each partition independently. Every event for one aggregate hashes to the same partition, so the per-partition result is exact and the merge is concatenation rather than a second reduction.
Follow-up
- The payload is a patch rather than a snapshot, so applying only the highest version loses the intermediate changes. What changes in your reduction?
- How do you detect that version 7 arrived while version 6 was never delivered, and what should the consumer do about the gap?
Keep soft-deleted accounts from blocking re-registration
app_user holds user_id, tenant_id, email CITEXT, password_hash (NULL for SSO principals), email_verified_at, auth_version, status ('invited','active','suspended','deactivated'), created_at, updated_at, deleted_at. Two live accounts for one address inside a tenant must be impossible, but an address freed by a soft delete must be reusable, and the same tenant may delete and re-register it repeatedly. Write the uniqueness DDL for PostgreSQL 16, then the equivalent for MySQL 8 where partial indexes do not exist, and say what each permits once three deleted rows already hold that address.
Approach
- Start from what is actually unique: not (tenant_id, email), but (tenant_id, email) among live rows. PostgreSQL says that directly — CREATE UNIQUE INDEX app_user_live_email ON app_user (tenant_id, email) WHERE deleted_at IS NULL. A full constraint over the same two columns burns the address permanently the first time someone deletes an account.
- Keep case-insensitivity in the type or the index, never in the application: CITEXT as given, or UNIQUE (tenant_id, lower(email)) as an expression index where the extension is unavailable. A case-sensitive unique column is exactly how two accounts for one human appear.
- For MySQL 8 the predicate has to move inside the key: add a discriminator column that is a constant 0 while the row is live and is set to user_id on delete, with UNIQUE (tenant_id, email, deleted_marker). Live rows share the constant and still collide; deleted rows differ from each other and stop colliding.
- State the NULL variant and its dependency: leaving the marker NULL for deleted rows also works, because a unique index treats NULLs as distinct — true in MySQL, and true in PostgreSQL only under the default NULLS DISTINCT, which PostgreSQL 15 lets you reverse. Check the polarity against the three existing deleted rows: constant-on-live is what preserves the collision you want, and reversing it silently admits duplicate live accounts.
Follow-up
- A deleted account re-registers with the same address the next day. Do the old resource rows follow the new user_id, and how does the API keep the two principals apart?
- How do you honour an erasure request while resource_revision.actor_user_id still references this table?
Stop tag and share joins from fanning out a page
resource_tag is (resource_id, tag_id) with PK (resource_id, tag_id); resource_share is (resource_id, shared_with_user_id, permission). The tagged-and-shared listing inner-joins resource to both, filters tenant_id, tag_id = ANY($2) and shared_with_user_id = $3, orders by updated_at DESC and takes 50. Pages come back with fewer than 50 distinct resources and the total in the header is far too high. Explain the row multiplication, rewrite both the page query and the count query so each is correct, and name the index each one needs. PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Do the arithmetic against the predicates that are actually there. An inner join emits one row per matching child row, and both joins are filtered: tag_id = ANY($2) admits only the requested tags, shared_with_user_id = $3 admits one user's share rows. So a resource holding three of the requested tags and shared with $3 once yields three rows, not one — the multiplier is its count of matching tags times its share rows for that single user, and that second factor is 1 unless the table admits duplicate (resource_id, shared_with_user_id) pairs. LIMIT 50 then limits rows rather than resources, and COUNT(*) counts pairs — the header is the product, not the population.
- Reject DISTINCT as the fix. It deduplicates after the product has been built, so the planner must materialise and sort the fanned-out set before the LIMIT can apply, and it leaves any SUM or AVG in the same select list wrong.
- Rewrite both filters as semi-joins, keeping resource as the only row source: AND EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM resource_tag rt WHERE rt.resource_id = r.resource_id AND rt.tag_id = ANY($2)) and the same shape against resource_share. A semi-join stops at the first match per resource and preserves the driving index order, so ORDER BY updated_at DESC, resource_id DESC LIMIT 50 still stops after 50 rows.
- Count with the same predicates and no join at all: SELECT count(*) FROM resource r WHERE r.tenant_id = $1 AND r.status = 'active' AND EXISTS (...) AND EXISTS (...). Nothing multiplies a resource, so the number is the population.
Follow-up
- The filter changes from 'any of these tags' to 'all of these tags'. Rewrite it and state what it costs relative to the ANY form.
- A resource can be shared with the same user twice under different permissions. Does your count change, and should it?
Walk me through the lifecycle of a request in a custom WordPress environment.
Walk me through the lifecycle of a request in a custom WordPress environment.
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
What are the best practices for structuring a custom plugin to ensure security, extensibility, and performance
What are the best practices for structuring a custom plugin to ensure security, extensibility, and performance?
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
How do you approach writing unit tests for legacy codebases or custom CMS extensions?
How do you approach writing unit tests for legacy codebases or custom CMS extensions?
Approach
- Fix the scope first: who calls this, how often, and what they do when it fails.
- Name the read and write paths separately; they rarely have the same bottleneck.
- Choose a partition key and say what query it makes expensive.
- State the consistency you need, and where you are willing to be stale.
Follow-up
- What breaks first when traffic grows ten times?
- How does this behave when that dependency is down for an hour?
How do you ensure your code complies with modern coding standards (such as PSR for PHP or ESLint for JavaScrip
How do you ensure your code complies with modern coding standards (such as PSR for PHP or ESLint for JavaScript)?
Approach
- Clarify what is being asked and what a complete answer contains.
- State your assumptions explicitly before working the problem.
- Say what you would check first and why it is the highest-information step.
- Work from the requirement backwards to the design.
Follow-up
- What assumption would you test first?
- How would you know your answer was wrong?
How do APIs communicate, and what are the key differences between REST and GraphQL in terms of performance and
How do APIs communicate, and what are the key differences between REST and GraphQL in terms of performance and implementation?
Approach
- Say who the caller is and what they do when the call fails halfway.
- Define the identity of a request so a retry cannot double-apply it.
- Separate accepted, pending, failed and confirmed; they are different facts.
- Design the error taxonomy before the success shape; callers branch on it.
Follow-up
- What happens if the caller retries after a timeout?
- How does a client discover it is on an old version of this contract?
Describe how you approach debugging a silent failure or a memory leak in a production environment.
Describe how you approach debugging a silent failure or a memory leak in a production environment.
Approach
- Establish what changed and when, before forming any theory.
- Pick a bisection that eliminates candidates whichever way it turns out.
- Check the instrumentation before believing the symptom.
- Separate the trigger from the cause; the deploy is rarely the bug.
Follow-up
- What would you look at first, and what would it rule out?
- How would you tell a cause from a coincidence here?
Built from the rounds and topics Penske Media candidates report.
Prepare, practise & reflect
One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.
0 / 7 done01Map the Penske Media loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Initial Screen, Technical Evaluation, Cross-Functional Discussion.
- For each round, write one sentence on what it is judging, from the description above, and mark the one you are least ready for.
Deliverable: A one-page map of the 3 reported rounds, with the weakest marked.
02Work Full-Stack Engineering
- Spend the session on Full-Stack Engineering, which Penske Media candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Full-Stack Engineering and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Full-Stack Engineering.
03Work Plugin Development (WordPress)
- Spend the session on Plugin Development (WordPress), which Penske Media candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Plugin Development (WordPress) and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Plugin Development (WordPress).
04Work Front-End Engineering
- Spend the session on Front-End Engineering, which Penske Media candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Front-End Engineering and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Front-End Engineering.
05Answer out loud: Technical & Platform Architecture
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you optimize database queries and page load times for a website experiencing massive concurrent traffic spikes?
- Answer aloud, timed: Walk me through the lifecycle of a request in a custom WordPress environment.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Technical & Platform Architecture question(s), under time.
06Answer out loud: General Programming & Web Concepts
- Answer aloud, timed: What is the difference between synchronous and asynchronous execution in JavaScript, and when would you use each?
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you ensure your code complies with modern coding standards (such as PSR for PHP or ESLint for JavaScript)?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported General Programming & Web Concepts question(s), under time.
07Answer out loud: Behavioral, Collaboration & Learning
- Answer aloud, timed: Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with a Product Manager or an editorial stakeholder to deliver a feature with ambiguous requirements.
- Answer aloud, timed: How do you keep your technical skills sharp, and what is your process for learning a new language or framework?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Behavioral, Collaboration & Learning question(s), under time.
Expand any day for tasks and deliverables. Your progress is saved on this device.
Behavioural rounds judge the decision you made and what it cost.
Explain your experience with caching strategies (e.g., Redis, Memcached, Varnish) and how they apply to dynami
Explain your experience with caching strategies (e.g., Redis, Memcached, Varnish) and how they apply to dynamic content delivery.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with a Product Manager or an editorial stakeholder to deliver a fe
Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with a Product Manager or an editorial stakeholder to deliver a feature with ambiguous requirements.
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you keep your technical skills sharp, and what is your process for learning a new language or framework
How do you keep your technical skills sharp, and what is your process for learning a new language or framework?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
Describe a situation where you realized your initial technical approach was wrong. How did you pivot, and what
Describe a situation where you realized your initial technical approach was wrong. How did you pivot, and what did you learn?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
How do you handle constructive feedback during code reviews, and how do you deliver feedback to your peers?
How do you handle constructive feedback during code reviews, and how do you deliver feedback to your peers?
Approach
- Pick a story where you made the decision, not one where you watched it.
- State the situation in two sentences and spend the rest on the reasoning.
- Give the blast radius: what could have broken, and what you measured.
- Name the disagreement and how you resolved it with evidence.
Follow-up
- What would you do differently if you ran that again?
- How did you know your change caused the improvement?
- 01
Explain your experience with caching strategies (e.g., Redis, Memcached, Varnish) and how they apply to dynamic content delivery.
- 02
Tell me about a time you had to collaborate with a Product Manager or an editorial stakeholder to deliver a feature with ambiguous requirements.
- 03
How do you keep your technical skills sharp, and what is your process for learning a new language or framework?
- 04
Describe a situation where you realized your initial technical approach was wrong. How did you pivot, and what did you learn?
How heavy is the algorithmic coding (LeetCode) in the interview?
Penske Media does not focus on abstract algorithmic puzzles or "FizzBuzz" style speed tests. The technical interviews are highly practical, focusing on real-world web development, custom coding standards, system architecture, and your ability to write clean, maintainable code.
Penske Media Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the typical timeline for the hiring process?
While some candidates experience administrative delays, a typical successful process takes approximately two to three weeks from the initial screen to the final offer.
Penske Media Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Is there a take-home assignment?
Yes, candidates for full-stack and backend roles are often asked to complete a practical take-home task, such as coding a custom WordPress plugin with basic requirements. Bonus points are heavily awarded for writing unit tests and adhering strictly to coding standards.
Penske Media Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the engineering culture like at Penske Media?
The engineering culture is highly collaborative, pragmatic, and supportive. The team prioritizes your growth, your approach to problem-solving, and your communication skills over raw coding speed.
Penske Media Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What topics does Penske Media test in interviews?
Penske Media interviews most often cover Stakeholder Communication, Cross-functional Collaboration, Stakeholder management, Project Management, and Partnerships and business development. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.
Penske Media Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗
No official company page is cited. Rounds and questions come from candidate reports and PracHub editorial material; each source shows the date it was read.
- 01Penske Media Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Company-reported rounds, questions and FAQ.
Candidate reports · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 02PracHub Software Engineer practice ↗
PracHub practice material, not company-reported.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 03PracHub preparation framework ↗
PracHub preparation guidance.
PracHub page · Accessed 2026-09-22
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