toddle Software Engineer Interview: Questions, Experience & Prep (2026)

toddle is a fast-growing B2B EdTech startup that builds curriculum and learning management software for teachers and schools, with a focus on IB (International Baccalaureate) and inquiry-based learning. As of mid-2026, toddle has 24 open Software Engineer roles, reflecting active team expansion.

Candidates report the interview process typically runs across several stages: an online coding assessment, a technical interview covering data structures and algorithms, a system design discussion, and one or more conversations on culture fit and product thinking. Some candidates also report a take-home assignment. The exact number and order of rounds can vary, so treat this as a general guide. The full process typically spans two to three weeks from application to offer.

toddle values engineers who can think in terms of teacher and student workflows, write clean and maintainable code, and take end-to-end ownership of features. Expect questions that blend technical depth with real-world product empathy.

Based on candidate reports, here are the kinds of questions that come up in toddle Software Engineer interviews:

1. Tell us about a technically challenging problem you have worked on. How did you break it down and solve it?
2. How would you design a system that allows thousands of teachers to collaboratively create and edit curriculum plans?
3. Walk us through how you would build a feature to track and display student progress across subjects over time.
4. How do you write code that is easy for teammates to read and extend, especially in a fast-moving startup?
5. Describe a time you had to refactor a piece of code under time pressure. What did you prioritise?
6. How would you approach building a product feature for users who are not technically savvy, such as primary school teachers?
7. Tell us about a time you disagreed with a technical or product decision. How did you raise it and what happened?
8. How have you handled a production incident or a bug that affected real users? Walk us through your process.
9. How would you approach adding support for multiple languages in a product used by international schools?
10. Describe a time you improved the performance of a system or feature. What was the impact?
11. How do you balance shipping fast with keeping technical debt low?
12. What does good cross-functional collaboration between engineers and product managers look like to you?

Three STAR-format sample answers for common toddle interview questions:

Q: Tell us about a technically challenging problem you worked on.

*Situation:* At my previous company, our teacher-facing report generation feature was timing out for schools with large student databases, causing frustration during high-traffic periods like end of term.

*Task:* I was asked to investigate and fix the performance issue without disrupting the feature for active users.

*Action:* I profiled the backend queries and found we were running repeated redundant database calls inside a loop. I rewrote the logic to use batch queries and added server-side pagination so results loaded incrementally. I also added caching for data that rarely changed between requests.

*Result:* Report generation time dropped significantly for large schools, and support tickets about timeouts stopped coming in. The product team was able to promote the feature more confidently after that.

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Q: Describe a time you improved system performance.

*Situation:* Our mobile app had a screen that loaded slowly because it was fetching the full course catalogue every time a teacher opened it, even when nothing had changed.

*Task:* I was responsible for reducing that load time as part of a broader performance sprint.

*Action:* I introduced a lightweight caching layer on the client side and updated the API to return a hash of the catalogue so the app could skip the full fetch when the data was unchanged. I also updated the team's internal wiki to document the trade-offs so others could build on the approach.

*Result:* The screen opened noticeably faster in testing. Teachers in user sessions reported the app felt snappier, and our analytics showed fewer users abandoning that screen mid-flow.

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Q: Tell us about a time you disagreed with a technical decision.

*Situation:* My team was planning to build a custom notification service from scratch, even though our timelines were tight and a third-party solution already covered most of our requirements.

*Task:* I felt strongly that the custom build was unnecessary risk, and I wanted to make that case without derailing the team.

*Action:* I put together a short comparison note for the team, outlining the maintenance cost of a custom solution versus the integration cost of using an existing service. I focused on the teacher-facing impact: delays to the notification feature would affect term-start rollouts. I shared it in our next planning call and invited pushback.

*Result:* The team agreed to evaluate the third-party option first. We integrated it within a week, which freed us up to focus on features that actually needed custom work.

STAR for behavioural questions. Every behavioural question at toddle (and most startups) is best answered with a clear Situation, Task, Action, Result structure. Keep your Situation and Task brief (a sentence or two each), spend most of your time on Action (what you specifically did, not what the team did), and close with a concrete Result.

Product-empathy lens for design questions. When asked to design a feature or system, open by clarifying who the user is (teacher, student, school admin) and what outcome they need, before jumping into architecture. toddle's product is deeply tied to real classroom workflows, so grounding your design in a user scenario will stand out.

Trade-off framing for technical decisions. When asked how you decide between two approaches, show your reasoning by naming the trade-offs explicitly: speed of delivery vs. maintainability, build vs. buy, simplicity vs. scalability. Interviewers at product-focused startups want to see that you can weigh these factors rather than defaulting to one answer.

Clarify before coding. In any live coding or system design question, spend a moment asking about constraints: scale, latency requirements, expected user behaviour. This signals seniority and reduces the chance of solving the wrong problem.

Based on what candidates report and toddle's public positioning, interviewers are typically looking for a few key things:

Ownership mindset. toddle is a startup where engineers are expected to take a feature from idea to production, sometimes alone. They want to see that you have done this before and are comfortable with ambiguity.

User empathy. Their product serves teachers and students, many of whom are not technical. Candidates who show they think about real-world user behaviour, not just code correctness, tend to stand out.

Communication skills. Because toddle is remote-friendly and cross-functional, clear written and verbal communication matters. Be crisp in how you explain your reasoning during the interview.

Code quality under pressure. They are looking for engineers who write readable, maintainable code even when moving fast, not just code that works.

Collaborative approach to disagreement. Expect questions about how you handle conflict or pushback. They want people who raise concerns constructively, not those who either stay silent or steamroll others.

Step 1: Understand toddle's product. Spend time with toddle's app or website as a teacher would. Notice how curriculum planning, student tracking, and collaboration features are designed. Think about the engineering challenges behind each screen. This will make your design and behavioural answers feel grounded.

Step 2: Data structures and algorithm practice. Focus on arrays, strings, trees, graphs, and dynamic programming. Work through a steady set of problems each day on a platform like LeetCode, starting with easier problems and moving to medium-difficulty ones. Practise explaining your thought process out loud as you solve, since interviewers typically value clarity of reasoning as much as the final solution itself.

Step 3: System design. Study how to design features like collaborative document editing, notification systems, and activity feeds, since these map closely to what toddle builds. Practise structuring your answer: clarify requirements, estimate scale, sketch components, discuss trade-offs.

Step 4: Behavioural prep. Write out several stories from your past work using the STAR format. Cover: a hard technical problem, a disagreement, a time you improved something, and a failure with what you learnt. Practise saying these out loud, not just reading them.

On the day: Read the job description again the morning of your interview. If you are actively job-searching at the same time, knok checks 150+ job sites nightly, applies to jobs matching your resume, and messages HR for you, so your applications keep moving while you focus on interview prep.

Jumping to code without clarifying. Many candidates start writing code the moment a question is asked. Take a moment to ask about constraints and edge cases first. Interviewers reward this habit.

Generic behavioural answers. Saying 'I am a team player' or 'I always deliver on time' without a specific story tells an interviewer nothing. Every behavioural answer needs a real situation with a real outcome.

Ignoring the EdTech context. Candidates who treat toddle like any generic SaaS company miss an opportunity. Tie your design and past-experience answers to teacher or student workflows wherever you can.

Overcomplicating system design. At a startup like toddle, a simple and maintainable design often wins over a theoretically impressive but fragile one. Start simple and add complexity only when the interviewer pushes for it.

Not asking questions at the end. The 'do you have any questions?' moment is an opportunity. Ask about the team's biggest engineering challenges, how they handle technical debt, or what onboarding looks like. It signals genuine interest.

Weak closing on behavioural answers. Many candidates skip the Result in STAR or give a vague one ('things got better'). Always close with a specific outcome, even if it is qualitative (the team adopted the approach, the feature shipped on time, the client was satisfied).