At The Swan Food, a Software Engineer is a vital driver of the digital experiences that connect customers with high-quality food solutions. You will be responsible for building, scaling, and maintaining the core web applications and backend services that power our operations. From optimizing user-facing interfaces to architecting robust systems that handle real-time transactions, your work directly influences how users interact with our brand and how efficiently our internal teams operate.

This role requires a balance of frontend precision and backend stability. You will not just write code; you will solve complex logistical and user-experience challenges in a fast-paced environment. Whether you are refactoring legacy interfaces into modern component-based architectures or designing scalable APIs, your contributions will ensure that The Swan Food remains a highly competitive and reliable service.

To succeed as a Software Engineer here, you must possess strong technical fundamentals, a passion for clean code, and a pragmatic approach to problem-solving. We look for engineers who take extreme ownership of their code, from the initial architectural design to deployment and post-launch optimization.

Our technical interview process is designed to evaluate your core programming capabilities, your understanding of modern web technologies, and your ability to design clean, maintainable systems. The questions are drawn from real candidate experiences and focus on practical engineering challenges rather than abstract brainteasers.

Frontend & Web Standards

This category evaluates your fundamental knowledge of the web platform, specifically how browser-based technologies function under the hood.

• Explain the difference between absolute, relative, and fixed positioning in CSS.
• How do you optimize a web application's loading performance when dealing with large media assets?

Preparing for an interview at The Swan Food requires a structured approach that balances technical deep dives with behavioral preparation. You should focus on demonstrating not just what you can build, but how and why you build it.

Role-Related Knowledge – You must demonstrate a deep understanding of core web technologies, specifically JavaScript, HTML, CSS, and backend patterns. Be ready to explain the underlying mechanics of the frameworks you use rather than just their syntax.

Problem-Solving & Attention to Detail – We value engineers who pay attention to the details. This means writing clean, self-documenting code, handling edge cases, and following industry best practices even when working under tight deadlines.

Communication & Collaboration – You must be able to articulate your technical decisions clearly. Whether you are defending a architectural choice during a system design review or explaining a bug to a non-technical stakeholder, clear communication is essential.

Pragmatism & Culture Fit – We look for engineers who balance perfectionism with pragmatism. Show that you know when to write a perfect, highly-optimized solution and when to deliver a functional, reliable MVP to meet business needs.

The interview process for a Software Engineer at The Swan Food is designed to evaluate both your practical coding skills and your cultural alignment with our engineering teams. The process is thorough but straightforward, focusing on real-world scenarios rather than theoretical puzzles.

You will begin with an initial conversation with a recruiter to discuss your background and expectations. This is followed by a technical screening call with an engineering lead, where you will discuss your past projects and answer foundational technical questions. If you pass this stage, you will be given a take-home technical assignment to complete within a specified timeframe. The final stages involve a deep-dive technical interview to review your task and discuss system architecture, followed by a conversation with a founder or engineering director to evaluate culture fit.

This diagram outlines the typical progression of our hiring pipeline from the initial touchpoint to the final decision. Candidates should use this timeline to pace their preparation, ensuring they allocate sufficient time to practice core coding skills before the take-home task and system design concepts before the final rounds.

To excel in the technical stages, you must understand the specific areas our engineers focus on during evaluations.

Frontend Engineering & Web Standards

We place a high value on clean, semantic HTML, robust CSS architecture, and modern JavaScript performance. You must show that you understand how browsers render pages and how to write highly responsive user interfaces.

Be ready to go over:

• CSS Layouts – Flexbox, Grid, and responsive design patterns.
• State Management – How to manage application state efficiently without unnecessary re-renders.
• Web Performance – Critical rendering path optimization, lazy loading, and code splitting.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Micro-frontends, custom browser rendering engines, and web workers for background processing.

Example scenarios:

• "Refactor a legacy CSS layout to use modern CSS Grid while maintaining backward compatibility."
• "Optimize a JavaScript-heavy page that is experiencing high input latency on mobile devices."

Clean Code & Task Execution

Your ability to execute a technical task with high quality is a major deciding factor. We evaluate your take-home task not just on whether it works, but on how well it is structured, documented, and tested.

Be ready to go over:

• Code Structure – Proper separation of concerns and modular design.
• Naming Conventions – Consistent and descriptive naming of variables, functions, and files.
• Testing – Writing meaningful unit and integration tests for your code.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Setting up automated CI/CD pipelines and linting rules for your project.

Example scenarios:

• "Explain why you chose a specific folder structure for your take-home project."
• "How would you refactor a provided piece of poorly-structured code to make it testable?"

Software Architecture & System Design

For mid-to-senior roles, we evaluate your ability to design scalable, reliable systems that can grow with the business.

Be ready to go over:

• API Design – Creating clean, versioned, and secure APIs.
• Database Modeling – Designing efficient schemas and query optimization.
• System Scalability – Load balancing, caching strategies, and message queues.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Event-driven architectures and domain-driven design.

Example scenarios:

• "Design a system that can process thousands of concurrent order updates without dropping messages."
• "How would you migrate a monolithic database to a distributed microservices architecture?"