winkle
Done For You

Sample finalists

Senior Backend Engineer at Paylane

What arrives on your private link. The role, the company and the people are invented; the page is the real one.

Tell us your role

Your finalists4

  1. 01

    Niles Davies

    Backend engineer · payments · 7 years

    88
    • Senior Backend Engineer assessment: 88%, passed
    • AI interview 86/100, strong yes
    • Designed idempotent webhooks, explained the trade-offs aloud

    Ask themHas run Kafka in production only briefly. Ask how he would size consumers for a sale.

    Why them

    Seven years on payment backends, most recently owning webhooks and reconciliation for a card processor. He is the strongest on the exact problem your brief describes: duplicate and out-of-order events. Calm and specific in the interview. He talked through trade-offs rather than reciting patterns.

    • Node.js
    • PostgreSQL
    • Kafka
    • Payments
    The AI interview

    Strengths

    • Designed idempotent webhooks, explained the trade-offs aloud

    To probe

    • Has run Kafka in production only briefly. Ask how he would size consumers for a sale.
    CV
  2. 02

    Lena Fischer

    Platform engineer · Go and Postgres · 9 years

    84
    • Senior Backend Engineer assessment: 84%, passed
    • AI interview 88/100, strong yes
    • Found the indexing fault in the query task in 6 minutes

    Ask themMostly Go; TypeScript is self-taught. Pair on a small TS change.

    Why them

    Nine years of platform work in Go and Postgres. Her systems-design answer was the strongest we saw for this role, and she found the indexing fault in the query task in six minutes.

    • Go
    • PostgreSQL
    • System design
    The AI interview

    Strengths

    • Found the indexing fault in the query task in 6 minutes

    To probe

    • Mostly Go; TypeScript is self-taught. Pair on a small TS change.
    CV
  3. 03

    Sofia Marino

    Backend engineer · fintech · 5 years

    81
    • Senior Backend Engineer assessment: 81%, passed
    • AI interview 79/100, yes
    • Wrote the clearest migration plan in the written task

    Ask themLess depth on queues. Probe back-pressure and retries.

    Why them

    Five years in fintech with real on-call experience she can put numbers to. The clearest written migration plan of anyone we assessed.

    • TypeScript
    • PostgreSQL
    • AWS
    The AI interview

    Strengths

    • Wrote the clearest migration plan in the written task

    To probe

    • Less depth on queues. Probe back-pressure and retries.
    CV
  4. 04

    Daniel Kim

    Full-stack engineer · APIs · 6 years

    76
    • Senior Backend Engineer assessment: 76%, passed
    • AI interview 81/100, yes
    • Best test coverage in the coding task

    Ask themSenior title is recent. Ask about a decision he owned end to end.

    Why them

    Six years building APIs end to end. Thorough, well-tested work and good questions back in the interview; the senior title is recent.

    • Node.js
    • REST APIs
    • Testing
    The AI interview

    Strengths

    • Best test coverage in the coding task

    To probe

    • Senior title is recent. Ask about a decision he owned end to end.
    CV