HubSpot Software Engineer Tech Phone Screen Experience with Codesignal
Question Details
I got a referral for HubSpot's Online Assessment (OA), a 90-minute codesignal. It wasn't too difficult, but the time was very tight. There were four levels, each worth 250 points, requiring a total of
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I got a referral for HubSpot's Online Assessment (OA), a 90-minute codesignal. It wasn't too difficult, but the time was very tight. There were four levels, each worth 250 points, requiring a total of 480 points. However, the platform has its own algorithm; it's not just a simple addition of scores. The questions are: (The following requires a score higher than 188. You can already view it.) The cloud storage question I got was similar; you can search for it on LeetCode. The core idea is a Trie, but with many conditional statements. L1: Implement initialization, storage, deletion, and searching (return file size). L2: Given a file prefix and a number n,
return the top n files with the same prefix based on file size. L3: Each file belongs to a user; implement a merge user function (file ownership is updated after merging). L4 (didn't complete). Overall, it wasn't difficult, but it tested my postgraduate level of proficiency; 90 minutes for four sub-questions was indeed a bit tight. Please give me points. Thank you everyone.
About This Question
This is a reported interview question from a hubspot interview for a swe role during the phone screen round reported in 2025.
It covers the following topics: Trie, Trie .
Difficulty rating: Easy
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About Hubspot Interview Reports
This question was reported by a candidate who interviewed at Hubspot. LeakCode aggregates interview reports from 10+ sources, including 1Point3Acres, Glassdoor, LeetCode Discuss, Blind, Reddit, Indeed, and Nowcoder. Each report is translated where necessary, deduplicated against existing entries, and tagged by company, role, round type, and reporting date.
Use this question as one calibration data point, not a memorization target. Companies typically rotate their question pools every 2-4 months; the exact wording of a 2024 question may differ from what you encounter today. The underlying pattern, difficulty level, and follow-up depth at Hubspot are the higher-signal extractions to take from this report.
For broader preparation context, the Hubspot interview process typically includes a recruiter screen, one or two technical phone screens, and a 4-5 round on-site loop covering coding, system design (at L4+ levels), and behavioral. Reports tagged on LeakCode show the round-by-round distribution and typical difficulty calibration. To browse questions filtered by round type and seniority, use the company hub linked above.
How To Practice This Type of Question
Solve similar problems on LeetCode under timed conditions (25-35 minutes per medium difficulty). The goal is pattern recognition: recognize the underlying technique (sliding window, two-pointer, BFS, memoized recursion, etc.) within 60-90 seconds of reading. Strong candidates verbalize their hypothesis out loud before coding, then iterate based on feedback. Weak candidates dive into implementation immediately, lose time on the wrong approach, and run out of time for follow-ups.
Companies update their question pools every 2-4 months. The exact wording of any given question may have been retired by the time you interview. Focus your prep on the pattern, not the specific problem. The patterns that appear in Hubspot reports consistently are the ones worth investing in; one-off niche problems are not.
During Your Hubspot Round
Apply the standard interview round template: clarify requirements (2-3 minutes), state your approach out loud and confirm direction with the interviewer (3-5 minutes), code with narration (15-25 minutes), test with concrete examples including edge cases (5 minutes), discuss optimization or trade-offs if time permits (5 minutes). This template is universally accepted across FAANG and adjacent companies; deviating from it produces weaker interviewer feedback signal.
The single most predictive failure mode in Hubspot reports tagged "no hire": not asking clarifying questions. Interviewers are explicitly trained to weight this. Strong candidates ask 3-5 clarifying questions even on problems that look obvious; weak candidates dive into code immediately. The clarifying-question check is often the first signal recorded in the interviewer's written notes.