Ramp·Software Engineer·Technical Phone Screen·Intermediate

IntermediatePrefer not to say

Jul 2026Remote

Summary

Ramp technical phone screen for a software engineer role. The question was a URL-chasing problem where you keep following links until you hit a success response. Felt more like a practical scripting exercise than a pure algorithms grind, which was a nice change.

Questions Asked (1)

Given a starting URL, implement a function that chains HTTP GET requests by following URLs returned in each response body, until a response signals success. Return only the final URL that produced the success response, log every response you receive, and handle retries for 503 errors and malformed bodies.

API & IntegrationsSystem DesignTechnical Trade-offs

Author's notes

The core loop isn't hard but I spent way too long overthinking the recursion vs iteration question before just going iterative.

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AI HintsAI Generated

Suggested Approach

Start by clarifying requirements and edge cases, then outline a robust solution that handles retries, logging, and error cases. Emphasize modular design with clear separation of concerns, and discuss trade-offs like retry strategies and logging verbosity.

Pro tip: Demonstrate production readiness by discussing idempotency and observability—e.g., using exponential backoff with jitter for retries and structured logging with correlation IDs to trace the request chain.

1. Clarify Requirements and Edge Cases

Ask questions to understand constraints: What defines 'success'? How many retries for 503? Should malformed bodies be retried? What logging format is expected? This shows thoroughness and prevents assumptions.

2. Design the Algorithm

Outline a loop that starts with the given URL, makes a GET request, logs the response, checks for success, and if not successful, extracts the next URL from the body. Handle 503 with retries and malformed bodies by logging and potentially retrying or aborting.

3. Implement Error Handling and Retries

For 503 errors, implement retry logic with exponential backoff and a maximum retry limit. For malformed bodies, decide whether to retry or fail gracefully; log the error and consider a retry with backoff if appropriate.

4. Incorporate Logging and Observability

Log every response with relevant details (URL, status code, body snippet, timestamp). Use structured logging (e.g., JSON) and include a correlation ID to trace the chain of requests.

5. Discuss Trade-offs and Production Considerations

Talk about trade-offs: retry limits, backoff strategy, timeout handling, and potential infinite loops. Mention idempotency, rate limiting, and how to test the function (unit tests with mocked HTTP responses).

Key Points to Mention

Retry strategy for 503 errors: exponential backoff with jitter, max retries, and respecting Retry-After header if present.
Logging: structured logging with timestamps, URLs, status codes, and response bodies; use correlation IDs for tracing.
Malformed body handling: log the error, decide whether to retry or abort; consider retrying with backoff if transient.
Success condition: define what constitutes success (e.g., HTTP 200 with specific body content) and how to detect it.
Infinite loop prevention: set a maximum number of hops or timeout to avoid endless chains.
Testing: unit tests with mocked HTTP responses to cover success, 503 retries, malformed bodies, and max retries exceeded.

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