As a Software Engineer at Steadily, you are responsible for building and scaling the technology that powers America's best-rated landlord insurance provider. Steadily is a fast-growing, venture-backed insurtech startup that operates on a simple premise: insurance should be fast, modern, and easy to buy. In this role, you do not just write code; you design and implement the core architecture that allows property owners to get quotes in minutes, document property damage seamlessly, and receive fast, reliable claim payouts. The work you do has a direct, measurable impact on the business and its users. You will work on highly critical systems, such as proprietary rating engines that calculate policy costs in real-time, and integrations with property intelligence APIs that evaluate geographic risks like fire, flood, and vandalism. Because Steadily values speed and pragmatic execution, you will be expected to deploy code to production within your first few hours on the job, iteratively improving a stack that manages billions of dollars in risk. ##### Tip Steadily prioritizes a highly collaborative, in-office environment in central Austin. Prepare to discuss how you thrive in a co-located team. To succeed at Steadily, you must balance technical rigor with a strong product mindset. The engineering team avoids over-engineering and prefers off-the-shelf solutions when they speed up delivery, reserving custom builds for areas that provide a true competitive advantage.
Recruiter Call
reportedInitial 30-minute Zoom call with a recruiter to discuss your background, career goals, and interest in Steadily.
What to demonstrate
- Initial 30-minute Zoom call with a recruiter to discuss your background, career goals, and interest in Steadily
- Depth in Python 3
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.
Hiring Manager Interview
reportedDiscussion with the hiring manager to explore your engineering experience, product philosophy, and leadership capabilities.
What to demonstrate
- Discussion with the hiring manager to explore your engineering experience, product philosophy, and leadership capabilities
- Depth in Python 3
How to prepare
- Prepare two projects you led end to end, each with the decision you owned and what it cost.
- Have three questions about the team's roadmap and how success is measured in the first six months.
Technical Evaluation
reportedUndergo a standard technical interview or a two-day paid contract trial to assess coding skills and real-world execution.
What to demonstrate
- Undergo a standard technical interview or a two-day paid contract trial to assess coding skills and real-world execution
- Depth in Python 3
How to prepare
- Answer aloud and timed: Implement a basic class in Python that models a specific real-world system (e.g., a simple inventory or booking system).
- Answer aloud and timed: Explain the design decisions behind your class structure and how you would ensure it is easy to maintain.
PracHub editorial advice for the preparation topics above.
Going into the loop without having done this.
To maximize your chances of success during the Steadily interview process, keep these practical, insider tips in mind:
Going into the loop without having done this.
Embrace the Startup Mindset: Show that you are comfortable with ambiguity and excited about taking ownership of features. Avoid sounding like an engineer who only wants to code highly structured, pre-defined specifications.
Going into the loop without having done this.
Communicate Trade-offs Clearly: When discussing system design or coding optimizations, always frame your decisions in terms of trade-offs. Explain why a simpler, faster solution might be better than a highly complex, perfectly scalable one in a startup context.
Going into the loop without having done this.
Steadily values candid, direct communication. Be honest about your trade-offs and do not hesitate to ask clarifying questions during technical sessions.
Choose a category, try a prompt, then open its approach, worked solution or follow-up when you need it.
Implement a basic class in Python that models a specific real-world system (e.g., a simple inventory or bookin
Implement a basic class in Python that models a specific real-world system (e.g., a simple inventory or booking system).
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Explain the design decisions behind your class structure and how you would ensure it is easy to maintain.
Explain the design decisions behind your class structure and how you would ensure it is easy to maintain.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
How do you approach error handling and input validation in your code?
How do you approach error handling and input validation in your code?
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
Write a function to parse and manipulate a basic data structure, ensuring optimal readability and clean execut
Write a function to parse and manipulate a basic data structure, ensuring optimal readability and clean execution.
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
How would you optimize a trivial document-processing algorithm to handle millions of documents efficiently?
How would you optimize a trivial document-processing algorithm to handle millions of documents efficiently?
Approach
- Restate the input: its shape, its size, and what is guaranteed about it.
- Name the brute-force solution and its complexity before improving on it.
- Choose the data structure from the access pattern, not from familiarity.
- State the target complexity and say which constraint rules the naive version out.
Follow-up
- How does this change if the input no longer fits in memory?
- What is the worst case, and how likely is it on real data?
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?
Replace offset paging on the resource feed with keyset
resource holds resource_id, tenant_id, owner_user_id, title, body_ref, version, status ('draft','active','archived','deleted'), created_at, updated_at, deleted_at, with an index on (tenant_id, status, updated_at DESC, resource_id DESC). The listing endpoint returns active resources for one tenant, newest update first, 50 per page, today with LIMIT 50 OFFSET n. Tenants reach page 400 and rows are created while they read. Write the keyset query, define what the cursor carries and how it is encoded, and say which part of the index each predicate uses. Assume PostgreSQL 16.
Approach
- Name the two failures separately. OFFSET 20000 makes the server produce and discard 20,000 rows, so page cost grows with depth rather than with page size. Independently, any write that changes how many rows sort above the offset moves the window between two fetches, and the direction decides which anomaly you get: an insert lands at the head of updated_at DESC and pushes already-returned rows down past the boundary, so they are returned a second time; a delete above the offset, or a row whose updated_at is bumped above the cursor, pulls rows up and one is never returned at all. Nothing in the response reveals either.
- Write the seek: WHERE tenant_id = $1 AND status = 'active' AND (updated_at, resource_id) < ($2, $3) ORDER BY updated_at DESC, resource_id DESC LIMIT 50. The row-value comparison is one index range rather than a disjunction, and both columns are NOT NULL, which is what makes that comparison well defined.
- Map each predicate onto the index: tenant_id and status are equality on the leading columns, (updated_at, resource_id) is the range, and the ORDER BY matches the index order so no Sort node appears and the scan stops after 50 rows. The DESC in the definition only matters for mixed directions — a plain ascending btree on the same columns is read backwards for this query.
- Put both sort columns in the cursor and nothing the client can tamper with into another tenant: base64 of (updated_at, resource_id), validated server-side, with tenant_id taken from the principal.
Follow-up
- The client asks for 'jump to page 400'. What do you offer instead, and what does the honest version cost?
- Sort order becomes user-selectable across four columns. How many indexes is that, and which would you refuse to add?
Why are you interested in joining Steadily, and how do you feel about working in an in-office environment in A
Why are you interested in joining Steadily, and how do you feel about working in an in-office environment in Austin?
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?
Talk about a project where you had to make a significant trade-off between code quality and speed to market.
Talk about a project where you had to make a significant trade-off between code quality and speed to market.
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?
If you had to process millions of records, how would you decide between optimizing the code execution versus l
If you had to process millions of records, how would you decide between optimizing the code execution versus leveraging a database for indexing and querying?
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?
Design a high-level architecture for a real-time rating engine that calculates insurance prices based on exter
Design a high-level architecture for a real-time rating engine that calculates insurance prices based on external API data.
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 would you design an event-driven architecture using Kafka to handle claims processing and notifications?
How would you design an event-driven architecture using Kafka to handle claims processing and notifications?
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 balance building a fully-fleshed-out technical specification versus iteratively shipping features t
How do you balance building a fully-fleshed-out technical specification versus iteratively shipping features to get user feedback?
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 you ensure that the user interfaces you build are intuitive enough for non-tech-savvy users?
How do you ensure that the user interfaces you build are intuitive enough for non-tech-savvy users?
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?
Exports duplicate a row range about once a week
Roughly once a week an export writes a file containing a duplicated range of rows. The affected job_run rows show attempt = 1, status = succeeded, one started_at, and a lease_owner naming a different host from the one whose logs show the job starting. Leases last 30 seconds and are heartbeated every 10 from inside the handler; lease_expires_at is computed on the worker and compared against the database's now(). Find the mechanism, and give a fix that holds even if you cannot fix the clocks.
Approach
- Start from the fact that eliminates the obvious answer. attempt = 1 means no retry was recorded, so this is not a re-run after failure; two workers ran the same row concurrently and the takeover path never touched the counter. lease_owner naming a host other than the one that started the job is the same statement from the other side.
- Enumerate the mechanisms that cause a premature takeover, then find the signal that separates them. Either the lease genuinely expired because the heartbeat did not fire, which is what happens when the heartbeat runs on the handler's own thread and the handler makes a long blocking call, or it only appeared expired because two clocks disagree, since lease_expires_at is written from the worker's clock and evaluated against the database's. The discriminator is the distribution: incidents clustered on the longest exports indict the heartbeat, incidents clustered on one host indict skew. Measure both, and measure each host's offset against the database directly.
- Read the reclaim query precisely. In PostgreSQL now() is transaction start time, not statement time, so a reclaimer holding a long transaction compares against an older timestamp than expected; clock_timestamp() is the statement-time function. This is worth ruling in or out before you redesign anything, because it changes which rows look expired.
- Remove the second clock rather than trying to synchronise it. Issue and extend the lease in the database, with lease_expires_at = now() + interval '30 seconds' in both the claim and the heartbeat, so exactly one clock is ever compared and worker skew stops mattering to this predicate.
Follow-up
- The displaced worker has already streamed half the file to object storage. What makes that side effect safe to repeat?
- You now count takeovers. What alert fires on that counter, and at what threshold?
Built from the rounds and topics Steadily candidates report.
Prepare, practise & reflect
One practical outcome each day. Spend longer where you need it.
0 / 7 done01Map the Steadily loop
- Write out the reported sequence: Recruiter Call, Hiring Manager Interview, Technical Evaluation.
- 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 Python 3
- Spend the session on Python 3, which Steadily candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Python 3 and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Python 3.
03Work Kafka (event-driven architecture)
- Spend the session on Kafka (event-driven architecture), which Steadily candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in Kafka (event-driven architecture) and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in Kafka (event-driven architecture).
04Work PostgreSQL
- Spend the session on PostgreSQL, which Steadily candidates report being tested on.
- Write one worked example in PostgreSQL and time yourself on it.
Deliverable: One timed worked example in PostgreSQL.
05Answer out loud: Recruiter & Core Experience
- Answer aloud, timed: Tell me about yourself and your experience building web applications.
- Answer aloud, timed: Why are you interested in joining Steadily, and how do you feel about working in an in-office environment in Austin?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Recruiter & Core Experience question(s), under time.
06Answer out loud: Basic Coding & Object-Oriented Design
- Answer aloud, timed: Implement a basic class in Python that models a specific real-world system (e.g., a simple inventory or booking system).
- Answer aloud, timed: Explain the design decisions behind your class structure and how you would ensure it is easy to maintain.
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported Basic Coding & Object-Oriented Design question(s), under time.
07Answer out loud: System Design & Scalability Trade-offs
- Answer aloud, timed: How would you optimize a trivial document-processing algorithm to handle millions of documents efficiently?
- Answer aloud, timed: If you had to process millions of records, how would you decide between optimizing the code execution versus leveraging a database for indexing and querying?
Deliverable: Spoken answers to 2 reported System Design & Scalability Trade-offs 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.
Tell me about yourself and your experience building web applications.
Tell me about yourself and your experience building web applications.
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 time when you had to dive into a complex, unfamiliar codebase. How did you get up to speed?
Describe a time when you had to dive into a complex, unfamiliar codebase. How did you get up to speed?
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 time when you disagreed with a product specification. How did you handle it, and what was the outco
Describe a time when you disagreed with a product specification. How did you handle it, and what was the outcome?
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
Tell me about yourself and your experience building web applications.
- 02
Describe a time when you had to dive into a complex, unfamiliar codebase. How did you get up to speed?
- 03
Describe a time when you disagreed with a product specification. How did you handle it, and what was the outcome?
How difficult is the Steadily interview process?
The difficulty is generally rated as average to difficult, depending on the specific track. While some technical coding rounds may feel straightforward or even basic, the two-day paid contract trial is highly realistic and demanding, testing your ability to deliver real-world code under real startup conditions.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the hybrid/remote work policy?
Steadily is committed to building an in-person, collaborative culture. This is a full-time, in-office position based in their central Austin, TX office. Candidates must be local or willing to relocate to Austin.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗How does the paid contract trial work?
If selected for this track, you will spend two days working as a paid contractor with the actual engineering team. You will be assigned real tickets, get access to their codebase, and be expected to ask questions, write code, and submit pull requests. It is a highly practical way to evaluate mutual fit.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What is the culture like on the engineering team?
The culture is fast-paced, highly collaborative, and exceptionally candid. The team values direct communication ("calling it like we see it") and prioritizes shipping impactful features quickly over long, drawn-out planning cycles.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Does Steadily require experience with their specific tech stack?
No. While they use Python, Kotlin, TypeScript, React, and Postgres, they care more about your engineering fundamentals and ability to learn quickly than your experience with specific languages or frameworks.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗How hard is the Steadily interview?
Candidates most commonly rate Steadily interviews as medium, based on 49 reported interviews. About 39% of candidates who interview go on to receive an offer.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗What topics does Steadily test in interviews?
Steadily interviews most often cover Trade-off analysis (speed vs quality), Insurance Pricing & Rating Systems, Python 3, Machine Learning (ML) model development, and Insurance product analysis. The exact emphasis depends on the specific role you apply for.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Where is Steadily headquartered?
Steadily is headquartered in Austin, US.
Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗Sources & methodology 3 sources ↗
Official role evidence, timestamped platform data and clearly labeled preparation advice.
- 01Steadily Software Engineer candidate reports ↗
Company-reported rounds, questions and FAQ.
candidate · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 02PracHub Software Engineer practice ↗
PracHub practice material, not company-reported.
platform · Accessed 2026-09-22 - 03PracHub preparation framework ↗
PracHub preparation guidance.
platform · Accessed 2026-09-22
Explore related engineering environments and compare the preparation focus.
Schneider Electric North America Software Engineer Interview Guide
What Schneider Electric North America asks Software Engineer candidates, from reported rounds and questions.
Rystad Energy Software Engineer Interview Guide
What Rystad Energy asks Software Engineer candidates, from reported rounds and questions.
Samsung Ads Software Engineer Interview Guide
What Samsung Ads asks Software Engineer candidates, from reported rounds and questions.
Oklahoma City Thunder Software Engineer Interview Guide
What Oklahoma City Thunder asks Software Engineer candidates, from reported rounds and questions.