You just received an email: your upcoming technical interview will be conducted by Karat. If you're not familiar with Karat interviews, you might be wondering what to expect and how they differ from a typical company interview.
Karat is a technical interviewing company that conducts live coding interviews on behalf of hundreds of tech companies. Instead of interviewing with an engineer from the company you applied to, you'll interview with a professional Karat Interview Engineer. The format is standardized, but the pressure is just as real.
What is a Karat Technical Interview?
Karat partners with companies like Indeed, Roblox, Intuit, and many others to conduct their technical screens. Here's what makes Karat interviews unique:
- Professional Interview Engineers: Your interviewer is a trained Karat employee, not someone from the hiring company. They follow a structured rubric.
- Standardized Format: Karat interviews follow a consistent structure, typically 60 minutes with 1-2 coding problems.
- Live Coding Environment: You'll code in Karat's proprietary editor while sharing your screen. The interviewer watches in real-time.
- Recorded Sessions: Your interview is recorded and shared with the hiring company for review.
- Flexible Scheduling: Karat offers interviews 7 days a week, often with more availability than company-direct interviews.
What to Expect in Your Karat Interview
A typical Karat interview follows this structure:
- Introduction (5 minutes): Brief introductions and overview of the interview format.
- Coding Problems (45-50 minutes): Usually 1-2 algorithm problems. You'll be expected to talk through your approach, write working code, and discuss time/space complexity.
- Questions (5 minutes): Time for you to ask questions about the role or company.
The problems are typically LeetCode-style questions covering data structures and algorithms: arrays, strings, trees, graphs, dynamic programming, and more.
Common Karat Interview Questions
Karat uses a pool of standardized problems. These specific questions are frequently reported by candidates:
- Badge Access Problem: Find employees who badged into a secured room 3+ times within a one-hour period. Involves parsing time strings and using hash maps.
- Domain Click Count: Given a list of domain visit counts, calculate aggregate totals across subdomains (e.g., visits to "mail.google.com" should also count toward "google.com").
- Find Rectangle in Matrix: Locate a rectangle of 0s within a matrix of 1s. Return the coordinates of the top-left and bottom-right corners.
- Shared Courses: Given student-course enrollment pairs, find all courses shared between every pair of students. Tests hash map usage and pair generation.
Problems typically have multiple parts that build on each other, starting easier and increasing in complexity. Expect follow-up questions like "now optimize for time" or "handle edge case X."
Why Karat Interviews Are Challenging
Even though Karat interviews are standardized, they come with unique pressures:
- You're Being Recorded: Knowing your session will be reviewed by the hiring company adds extra pressure.
- Strict Time Limits: With only 45-50 minutes for coding, there's no time to get stuck.
- Unfamiliar Environment: Karat's code editor may feel different from your usual IDE.
- Think-Aloud Requirement: You must verbalize your thought process while coding, which can be mentally taxing.
- Pattern Recognition Under Pressure: Identifying the right algorithm approach quickly is critical.
How CodingInterviewAI Helps During Karat Interviews
CodingInterviewAI is designed to provide discreet, real-time assistance during live coding interviews, including Karat sessions. Here's how it helps:
- Instant Pattern Recognition: Capture the problem with a hotkey and immediately identify whether it's a graph problem, DP, sliding window, or another pattern.
- Optimal Approach Guidance: Get suggestions for the most efficient solution, avoiding
O(n²) approaches when O(n) exists. - Algorithm Explanations: Stuck on implementation? Get clear, step-by-step explanations to guide your coding.
- Works Undetectably: Uses screen capture and global hotkeys, no tab switching or copy-pasting required.
Learn more about how the undetectable technology works.
Karat Interview Prep: Tips to Succeed
- Test Your Setup: Karat sends a link to test your audio, video, and screen sharing beforehand. Do it.
- Practice Thinking Aloud: Karat evaluates your communication. Practice explaining your approach before coding.
- Clarify Before Coding: Ask clarifying questions about edge cases and constraints upfront.
- Start with Brute Force: If stuck, describe a brute force approach first, then optimize.
- Manage Your Time: With multiple problems, don't spend too long on part one.
Ace Your Karat Interview
Karat technical interviews are a common gateway to top tech companies. The standardized format means you know what to expect, but the live coding pressure is real. Don't let a momentary blank or pattern confusion cost you the opportunity.
With CodingInterviewAI, you have a discreet assistant ready to help you identify patterns, optimize solutions, and code confidently during your Karat interview.
Ready to ace your Karat interview?
