After few weeks of reaching out to recruiters and engineers, I was able to land an on-site interview for a junior position. I’m really excited, but at the same time a bit nervous of what to expect.
From what I know it is a 3-hour interview, consisting meeting 4 engineers in total.
Any tips on what to expect besides the obvious technical part (whiteboarding, code challenge, etc)? Any rookies advice?
I coincidentally have an on-site job interview this week as well (for a front-end developer position) that’s also 3 hours. So good luck to both of us, I guess? 
The 3 hours were clearly outlined for me as to what to expect during each hour, so not sure about your case, but my guess is that you’ll probably be given 1 hour for the technical part, so you’ll likely be doing something else for the other 2 hours.
You may have heard this already, but something to keep in mind for an interview that’s as long as 3 hours is that at some point, you’re probably going to be interviewed specifically for your people skills and culture-fit level, and it’s not going to be a “formal” interview. If your interviewer says that you’re going out for lunch or coffee (or any kind of food or drink-related break, or if it’s a large company and the interviewer says something like “let’s go for a walk”), you know that’s when your “people skills” interview is starting. And that’s when you have to be on your toes, because you could run into anyone, from the CEO (if it’s a small enough company) to the people that you’d be working with, and everyone in between (and if it’s a large-enough company, you might even run into maintenance workers—so don’t forget about that!). If it’s a small-enough company, chances are pretty high that you might run into the CEO, so be prepared for that. I had a job in the past once where I didn’t meet the CEO (and co-founder) during my interview, but he did stop by to shake my hand on the first day of the job. I suspect if the company had been smaller (it was about 250 people to put it into perspective), I probably would’ve run into him during the interview.
And if you do head out to something like a restaurant or cafe, you can be sure that your interviewer will be checking all of your actions, from your table manners to how you treat the wait staff.
Also, during the technical part of the interview, don’t assume that your interviewers know what you’re thinking, if you have to spend more than 3 seconds to think about something. Think out loud, and say what you’re thinking, so your interviewer knows your thought process and would be able to help you.
Thanks for the tips! Good luck with your interview this week!
“Cracking the Coding Interview” is a fantastic resource for this, and she devotes quite a bit of time to how to prepare and handle the soft skills/non-technical parts of the interview.
If you can’t/don’t want to buy the book, she has some free videos (and code questions!) on HackerRank with similar stuff.