Event held April 23. 2026

Last year's 2025 Cafecito with Yelp Engineering covered resume tips and coding challenges. This time, we brought together Yelp engineers and recruiters to talk through one of our behavioral interviews – technical communication, what it evaluates, and how to prepare for it.

Life At Yelp

At Yelp, the interview process is built to give you every chance to show up as your best self. Vanessa A., a software engineer based in Mexico, shared her own journey as a picture of what that looks like. What stood out most was that throughout every stage, her interviewers and recruiting partner genuinely wanted her to succeed, which allowed her to experience Yelp’s culture. This carried into onboarding too. From day one she was paired with a dedicated mentor, given structured first tickets to ease into the codebase at her own pace, and surrounded by a team that was genuinely invested in helping her grow into the role.

So what does that process actually look like, and how do you prepare for it?

Navigating the Technical Communication Interview

The technical communication interview is typically the first behavioral interview in Yelp's engineering interview process. In this round, candidates are asked to walk through a past project in depth. Your interviewer will want to understand the technical complexity of what you worked on, the challenges you ran into and what you learned from them, and specifically what your individual contribution was versus what the team delivered. Ellen H., a Yelp technical recruiting manager, put it simply: come in with one or two projects here you can speak confidently to every decision made, every challenge faced, and the impact your work had.

Live Mock Interviews

Another highlight of the session was a live mock interview with two members of Yelp’s engineering team, Phillis Y., a software engineer, and Rafa H.M., an engineering manager. Both ran two live scenarios around the same question: tell me about a project you worked on. The first scenario showed a common pitfall where the response lacked details around personal ownership and context. The second scenario demonstrated what a strong response looks like, starting with the business case and clearly detailing individual contributions. The audience got to weigh in after each one, sharing their reads in real time before the team broke down what worked, what didn't, and why.

Here are tips that the team covered to help you ace your behavioral interviews:

Start with the why. Before getting into what you built, explain the business case, who it was for, and how success was measured. This gives your interviewer the context they need to follow the rest of your answer.
Show ownership. Don't just describe how work was divided across the team. Explain what you specifically contributed, where you made decisions, and how your work connected to the bigger outcome.
Explain challenges and tradeoffs. Share examples of project decisions–what you prioritized, what you modified or removed, and how you navigated constraints. Discussing your reasoning helps interviewers understand your problem-solving approach and thought process.
Be clear and concise. Spell out acronyms and explain technical terms, even the ones that feel obvious. Your interviewer may not share the same context.
Ask questions. If something isn't clear, ask. Being proactive to unblock yourself is a value that Yelp values in our teams.

Here’s a resources page with everything mentioned in this session to help you get started.

Watch the Full Session

The blog covers the highlights, but the full session is worth your time. Watch the recording to see both mock interview scenarios play out, hear the audience Q&A, and catch everything the team shared directly.

¡Éxito! 🎉

About the Speakers

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