To succeed in the True Anomaly interview process, you must demonstrate a unique blend of technical execution, systems-level thinking, and the ability to navigate ambiguous requirements. We evaluate candidates across several core dimensions:

Technical & Domain Knowledge – You must show a strong grasp of your primary tech stack, whether that is modern frontend frameworks (React, TypeScript, Three.js), functional backend systems (Elixir, OTP), or systems programming languages (C++, Python). You should understand how your code behaves under load, how memory is managed, and how state is maintained.

System Design & Architecture – You will be asked to design complex, distributed networks. We look for your ability to select appropriate communication protocols (such as gRPC, WebSockets, or RESTful APIs), design reliable data pipelines, and implement robust messaging queues.

Handling Ambiguity – Our engineering challenges are often open-ended and greenfield. You must demonstrate that you do not need a perfect product spec to begin. We evaluate how you ask clarifying questions, make reasonable assumptions, and build modular systems that can adapt to changing requirements.

Mission & Culture Fit – We build technology for national security and space sustainability. We look for highly collaborative, professional engineers who thrive on constructive conflict, take extreme ownership of their work, and are deeply motivated by the mission.

The interview process at True Anomaly is designed to evaluate both your technical execution and your alignment with our engineering culture. The entire sequence typically moves efficiently, often concluding within two to three weeks, though the technical stages require rigorous preparation.

The process begins with a recruiter screen to assess your high-level technical background and baseline interest in the company's mission. This is followed by a technical and experience-based conversation with the hiring manager. From there, you will enter the core technical evaluation phase, which includes a practical homework assessment followed by a panel presentation where you defend your design decisions. The final stage is an executive fit check, often with the CEO or senior leadership, to ensure mission alignment.

The visual timeline above outlines the standard progression of our interview stages. Candidates should expect a highly structured sequence that transitions quickly from initial screening to deep technical defense. Use this timeline to pace your preparation, ensuring you allocate ample time to build and refine your technical homework assignment before presenting it to our engineering panel.

Distributed Systems & Command Architecture

A primary focus of the technical evaluation is your ability to architect a Telemetry, Tracking, and Command (TT&C) distributed system. This system must safely transmit commands to a spacecraft and ingest telemetry data via a third-party API.

Be ready to go over:

• Message Queues and Job Schedulers – Understand where and why to introduce message brokers like RabbitMQ or Apache Kafka to decouple your TT&C server from external APIs.
• Protocol Selection – Be prepared to justify your choice of protocols (e.g., gRPC for low-latency internal communication, WebSockets for real-time telemetry streaming, or REST for simple command transactions).
• Fault Tolerance and Idempotency – Explain how your architecture handles failed commands, network drops, and duplicate command delivery without putting the physical spacecraft at risk.

Advanced concepts (less common):

• Designing for network partitions (CAP theorem implications in space-to-ground systems).
• Implementing backpressure mechanisms in distributed data streams.

Example scenarios:

• "Design a system that allows multiple mission operators to send concurrent commands to a single satellite while ensuring commands are executed in the exact order they were received."
• "How would you handle a scenario where the third-party satellite API goes offline for 10 minutes while the spacecraft is actively sending telemetry?"

Concurrent & Multithreaded Ingestion

For roles interacting with low-level ground systems or high-throughput data processing, you will be evaluated on your ability to write safe, concurrent code in languages like C++, Python, or Elixir.

Be ready to go over:

• Thread Synchronization – Deep understanding of mutexes, locks, semaphores, and condition variables to prevent race conditions.
• The Actor Model & OTP – For full-stack and backend roles, understand how Elixir's GenServers and supervision trees manage isolated state and recover from failures automatically.
• Resource Management – How to handle memory allocation and CPU utilization when parsing high-volume binary telemetry packets.

Example scenarios:

• "Write a multithreaded telemetry parser that reads data from a socket, processes it concurrently, and writes the structured output to a database without blocking the ingestion thread."
• "Explain how you would debug a deadlock occurring in a multi-threaded C++ telemetry processing pipeline."

Modern Full-Stack Development

For full-stack roles, you must demonstrate the ability to build rich, data-dense web applications that give operators real-time situational awareness.

Be ready to go over:

• Real-Time UI State – Managing complex state in React using Hooks, Context API, or state management libraries while consuming high-frequency WebSocket updates.
• 3D Visualization – Familiarity with rendering spacecraft trajectories and spatial data using Three.js or React Three Fiber.
• API Integration – Designing clean schemas using gRPC-Web, GraphQL, or REST to bind your React frontend to an Elixir or Go backend.

Advanced concepts (less common):

• WebGL performance optimization for rendering thousands of active orbital objects.
• Implementing custom React hooks to throttle high-frequency rendering updates.

Example scenarios:

• "How would you optimize a React component that needs to render a 3D orbital path while updating a data table with 100 telemetry updates per second?"
• "Design the database schema and API endpoint structure to support real-time mission planning editing by multiple collaborative operators."

As a Software Engineer at True Anomaly, you will be responsible for the end-to-end lifecycle of critical space operations software. On any given day, your responsibilities will include:

• Designing and Building Greenfield Systems – You will write clean, maintainable, and highly testable code across our React/TypeScript frontend and Elixir backend systems. You will have direct ownership of features from architectural design to deployment.
• Developing Mission Control Capabilities – You will build tools that enable real-time satellite command and control, complex mission planning, and high-frequency data processing. This includes creating intuitive 2D and 3D visualization interfaces to help operators make split-second tactical decisions.
• Collaborating Across Disciplines – You will work closely with space operators, UI/UX designers, and astrodynamics algorithm engineers. You will translate complex orbital mechanics and tactical military objectives into reliable, user-friendly software interfaces.
• Ensuring System Reliability – You will participate in rigorous design and code reviews. Because our software interacts with physical assets in space, you will implement comprehensive testing suites (using tools like ExUnit, Jest, or Vitest) and design fault-tolerant, resilient architectures that prevent single points of failure.