Before getting into my experience at Tide, I want to share my interview experience, because the interview process itself was actually quite good and well structured.
Offer Details
Total YOE: 6 Years
Role Offered - SDE-3
CTC Offered: ₹40 LPA — All Fixed
Employer PF Contribution: Maximum ₹1,800/month
ESOPs: 800
My Interview Experience at Tide
Round 1 — HR / Initial Technical Discussion (30 Min)
The first round was an approximately 30-minute HR call.
The interviewer asked some basic technical questions around:
Multithreading
Event-driven architecture
End-to-end project delivery
He also explained the role, responsibilities, and what I could expect from the position.
Overall, this was a straightforward discussion and a good introduction to the role.
Round 2 — Code Review Round (60 Mins)
The second round was a Code Review round, which I found quite interesting.
You are given roughly 50 lines of code, basically an API controller layer where almost everything is happening in the same place:
Service calls
Database calls
Event publishing
Business logic
The expectation is to identify problems and write at least 15 comments, including both major and minor issues.
Format
You get around 40 minutes to review the code and write your comments.
During this time:
Audio/video needs to be turned off.
You are expected to treat it like a real PR review you would do in your day-to-day engineering work.
Comments should be short and precise.
Ideally, one line or maximum two lines.
Around 10–15 words maximum per comment so the interviewer can quickly understand your point.
After that, there is another 20-minute discussion.
The interviewers mainly focus on the major issues you identified and ask questions like:
Why did you flag this?
What could be the impact?
What would you recommend instead?
What could happen in production if this isn't fixed?
The important thing here is not just identifying issues. You need to clearly explain the reason and potential outcome behind your comments.
The next day, I received feedback that I was selected for the next round, along with some additional feedback from the interviewer.
Round 3 — Hiring Manager Round(60-75 Mins)
The third round was with the Hiring Manager.
One Engineering Manager from the team I was being interviewed for joined the discussion.
The first 15–20 minutes were mainly about one of my projects.
You need to have strong end-to-end knowledge here because after understanding your project, the interviewer starts going deeper into your decisions.
Questions can revolve around:
Why did you choose this technology?
Why this architecture?
What alternatives did you consider?
What were the trade-offs?
What was your strategy?
How did you handle scalability?
What problems did you face?
What was your individual contribution?
How did you take the project from development to production?
So, if you're preparing for this round, don't just prepare your resume bullets. Know your project end-to-end.
Immediately after this round, HR contacted me and told me that I was selected. He also shared the feedback from the Hiring Manager.
Finally, I received the offer letter.
The ESOP structure was:
Approximate value at that time: £10 per ESOP
Total ESOPs: 800
Vesting period: 1-year cliff
After 1 year: 25% vesting = 200 ESOPs
From the 13th month onwards: remaining ESOPs vest monthly.
Personally, I didn't consider the ESOPs particularly valuable because the company isn't publicly listed, so there isn't a straightforward way to trade them like publicly traded shares.
For me, it felt more like paper money unless there is eventually a liquidity event.
The Only Perk I Really Valued
Remote Job
The biggest perk was definitely the remote work option.
However, ironically, I never really felt like I was working remotely.
There were days when I was sitting in front of my laptop for 12–14 hours.
So technically:
Remote job ✅
Remote lifestyle ❌ 😭
My Honest Experience at Tide
I'm sharing it in other post -
POST LINK !