← Grammarly Interview Insights

Grammarly·Software Engineer·Executive / Final Round·Senior

Senior
May 2026

Summary

Behavioral round at Grammarly with a CTO-level interviewer, free-form style with lots of follow-up questions. Less structured than I expected, more like a real conversation than a checklist.

Questions Asked (4)

Q1

Why do you want to join this company specifically?

Adaptability & Ambiguity
Author's notes

I had an answer prepared but the follow-ups kind of unraveled it.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Show that you've done your homework on Grammarly's product, mission, and engineering culture, and connect them to your own skills and values. Emphasize how you can contribute to solving Grammarly's unique challenges, especially in a fast-changing AI-driven environment. Be specific and authentic, avoiding generic praise.

Pro tip: Mention a recent Grammarly engineering blog post or product update and explain how it aligns with your experience or interests. This demonstrates genuine engagement and initiative.

1. Research the company deeply

Go beyond the homepage: read Grammarly's engineering blog, recent press releases, and product updates. Understand their mission to improve lives by improving communication.

2. Identify your alignment

Find specific aspects of Grammarly's work that resonate with your skills, values, or career goals. For example, their use of NLP, focus on user trust, or scalable architecture.

3. Connect to the role

Explain how your background prepares you to tackle Grammarly's engineering challenges, such as handling ambiguity in AI features or scaling real-time suggestions.

4. Show enthusiasm for impact

Articulate why Grammarly's mission excites you and how you want to contribute to their next phase of growth, especially in a rapidly evolving AI landscape.

5. Keep it concise and authentic

Structure your answer in 60-90 seconds, focusing on 2-3 key points. Avoid rehearsed flattery; let your genuine interest show.

Key Points to Mention

  • Grammarly's mission to improve communication and its impact on millions of users
  • Recent engineering innovations, such as their AI-powered writing suggestions or real-time collaboration features
  • The company's engineering culture, values, or tech stack (e.g., use of machine learning, scalability challenges)
  • How your skills and experiences align with Grammarly's needs, especially in handling ambiguity and rapid iteration
  • Specific examples of Grammarly's product or blog content that impressed you
  • Your desire to work on impactful, user-facing problems in a fast-paced environment

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.

Q2

What is driving you to leave your current role?

Adaptability & Ambiguity
Author's notes

Kept it positive, talked about wanting more scope.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Frame your departure as a deliberate move toward growth and impact, not an escape from problems. Emphasize your desire for greater scope, ambiguity, and product-driven engineering—qualities Notion values. Keep the tone positive and forward-looking, focusing on what you're moving toward rather than what you're leaving behind.

Pro tip: Avoid criticizing your current employer; instead, highlight how Notion's mission and engineering challenges align with your long-term goals. Show that you've thought deeply about the role and can articulate specific ways you'd contribute from day one.

1. Start with gratitude and context

Briefly acknowledge what you've learned and accomplished in your current role, setting a positive tone. This shows professionalism and avoids sounding disgruntled.

2. Identify the gap

Explain what's missing in your current role—such as limited scope, lack of ambiguity, or misalignment with your career goals—without blaming anyone. Focus on the opportunity gap, not personal conflicts.

3. Connect to Notion's mission and challenges

Articulate how Notion's product, engineering culture, and problem space excite you and align with your desired growth. Mention specific aspects like building for ambiguity, user empathy, or cross-functional collaboration.

4. Show future impact

Describe the kind of impact you want to have and how this role enables it. Tie it back to your skills and the value you can bring to Notion.

5. Close with enthusiasm

End on a positive note, expressing excitement about the opportunity and confidence that this move is the right next step for your career.

Key Points to Mention

  • Desire for greater ownership and ambiguity in engineering problems
  • Alignment with Notion's mission to democratize software creation
  • Opportunity to work on a product that blends engineering and design
  • Seeking a culture that values adaptability and rapid iteration
  • Career growth toward technical leadership or broader impact
  • Excitement about Notion's engineering challenges and scale

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.

Q3

Walk me through the project you are most proud of.

Cross-functional AlignmentTechnical Trade-offs
Author's notes

This is where I spent the most time.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Choose a project that demonstrates both technical depth and cross-functional collaboration, ideally with measurable impact. Structure your answer to highlight the problem, your specific contributions, the trade-offs you navigated, and the results, while emphasizing how you aligned with product, design, and other engineering teams.

Pro tip: Quantify the impact with metrics (e.g., latency reduction, user engagement increase) and explicitly mention how you balanced technical debt against feature delivery—Grammarly values pragmatic engineering that serves user needs.

1. Set the Context

Briefly describe the project's goal, your role, and the team composition, including cross-functional partners. Keep it concise to focus on your actions.

2. Highlight the Challenge

Explain the core technical or product challenge, such as scalability, performance, or conflicting requirements, and why it mattered to the business.

3. Detail Your Approach

Walk through the key decisions you made, including technical trade-offs (e.g., build vs. buy, consistency vs. availability) and how you collaborated with other teams to align on solutions.

4. Show the Impact

Quantify the outcomes with metrics (e.g., reduced latency by 40%, increased conversion by 15%) and mention any recognition or adoption by other teams.

5. Reflect and Learn

Share what you learned, how you grew, and how you applied those lessons to future projects, demonstrating self-awareness and continuous improvement.

Key Points to Mention

  • Cross-functional collaboration: how you worked with product managers, designers, and other engineers to define requirements and iterate.
  • Technical trade-offs: specific decisions like choosing a particular architecture, library, or algorithm and the reasoning behind them.
  • Measurable impact: quantitative results such as performance improvements, user growth, or cost savings.
  • Ownership and initiative: your specific contributions beyond assigned tasks, such as proposing a solution or leading a part of the project.
  • Alignment with business goals: how the project supported Grammarly's mission or key objectives.
  • Lessons learned: what you would do differently and how it improved your engineering practice.

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.

Q4

What excites you most about this role?

Product Sense & Ideation
Author's notes

Easier than the others.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Connect your personal excitement to Grammarly's mission of improving lives through better communication, and specifically to the engineering challenges of building AI-powered writing assistance at scale. Show how this role aligns with your skills, interests, and desire to make a tangible impact on millions of users.

Pro tip: Avoid generic enthusiasm; instead, mention a specific Grammarly feature or engineering blog post that impressed you, and explain how you'd contribute to its evolution. This demonstrates genuine research and product sense.

1. Express overall enthusiasm

Start with a concise statement of why you're excited about Grammarly's mission and the role's potential impact.

2. Highlight specific technical challenges

Discuss the engineering problems that excite you, such as scaling AI models, real-time suggestions, or cross-platform performance.

3. Align with your skills and goals

Explain how your background and career aspirations make this role a perfect fit for you.

4. Connect to product impact

Describe how your work would contribute to improving user communication and Grammarly's product evolution.

5. Close with forward-looking excitement

Summarize your eagerness to join the team and tackle these challenges together.

Key Points to Mention

  • Grammarly's mission to improve lives by helping people communicate effectively
  • Opportunity to work on AI/ML-driven writing assistance at scale
  • Real-time feedback and low-latency engineering challenges
  • Cross-platform integration (browser, desktop, mobile) and user experience
  • Data-driven product iteration and A/B testing culture
  • Collaboration with product, design, and research teams to innovate

AI-generated suggestions, not part of the candidate's original notes. May be inaccurate — verify before relying on them.