Preparing for an interview at Ursa Space Systems requires a balanced approach that covers technical depth, architectural thinking, and behavioral alignment. You should be ready to talk in detail about your past technical decisions and demonstrate how you approach complex, ambiguous problems.

Here are the key criteria the hiring team will use to evaluate you throughout the process:

Technical & Architectural Competence – Your ability to design scalable backend services and clear data models is critical. Interviewers will evaluate your understanding of database design, API structures, and how you separate business logic from presentation layers.

Problem-Solving & Collaboration – You will be assessed on how you write code in real-time and how you collaborate with peer developers. This includes your ability to communicate your thought process clearly during pair programming exercises and take constructive feedback.

Communication with Leadership – Because you will interface with upper-level management, including the CTO and Chief Scientist, you must be able to articulate technical trade-offs clearly. You should be prepared to discuss both high-level system architecture and low-level implementation details confidently.

The interview process at Ursa Space Systems is thorough, structured, and designed to evaluate both your technical execution and your high-level architectural thinking. The process typically spans several weeks and involves multiple touchpoints with both the engineering team and executive leadership. This comprehensive approach ensures that you are a strong technical fit and aligned with the company's collaborative culture.

The journey begins with an automated technical assessment designed to evaluate your core coding and problem-solving abilities. If you pass this initial stage, you will move to conversations with human resources and senior technical leaders, culminating in practical engineering exercises. The final stages focus heavily on your ability to collaborate in real-time and discuss system design concepts.

The timeline shown above outlines the typical progression of a candidate through the hiring pipeline. You should use this visual roadmap to pace your preparation, ensuring you focus on coding fundamentals early on before transitioning to system design and behavioral scenarios. While the exact duration can vary depending on candidate availability, the entire process from the automated test to the final decision typically takes between four to six weeks.

To succeed at Ursa Space Systems, you must perform consistently across several key evaluation areas. Each stage of the interview targets specific competencies, ranging from hands-on coding to architectural design.

System Design and Data Modeling

System design interviews at Ursa Space Systems focus heavily on backend architecture, database schemas, and business logic. You will not be expected to focus on frontend development, but you must demonstrate a deep understanding of how data flows through a system.

Be ready to go over:

• Database schema design – Structuring relational or non-relational databases to handle complex data relationships efficiently.
• Business logic separation – Designing clean APIs and decoupling the backend processing from the client-facing layers.
• Scalability and performance – Identifying potential bottlenecks in data pipelines and proposing caching or queuing strategies.
• Advanced concepts (less common) – Designing geospatial data indexing, handling large-scale raster/vector data ingestion, and optimizing spatial queries.

Example scenarios:

• Designing the backend data models and business logic for a platform with complex user relationships and real-time updates.
• Structuring an API and database schema to handle large volumes of time-series or location-based data.

Pair Programming and Coding

The pair programming session is a collaborative exercise with a Lead Developer. This round is designed to see how you write code, debug issues, and collaborate with team members in a shared environment.

Be ready to go over:

• Clean code practices – Writing readable, maintainable, and well-structured code.
• Algorithmic efficiency – Understanding the time and space complexity of your solutions.
• Collaborative debugging – Working out loud, explaining your thought process, and incorporating feedback from your interviewer.

Example scenarios:

• Implementing a specific backend feature or utility function while discussing edge cases with the interviewer.
• Refactoring an existing codebase to improve performance or readability.

Behavioral and Leadership Conversations

Because the engineering team works closely with executive leadership, you will participate in behavioral interviews with the CTO, Chief Scientist, and other senior managers. These conversations focus on your professional background, communication style, and alignment with the company's goals.

Be ready to go over:

• Resume deep dives – Explaining the technical decisions and outcomes of your past projects.
• Handling ambiguity – Discussing how you approach poorly defined requirements or shifting priorities.
• Cross-functional communication – Explaining how you collaborate with non-technical teams and leadership.

Example scenarios:

• Describing a situation where you had to make a difficult technical trade-off under a tight deadline.
• Discussing how you handled a project that did not go according to plan and what you learned from it.