--- title: "Quicksort with Alex Levine from Ticketbud - CoderPad" description: "In our first-ever Quicksort blog, we chat with Alex Levine, Engineering Manager for Ticketbud, on how technical job applicants can stand out. Ticketbud provides a platform to sell and promote great events for attendees who want to make amazing memories." canonical: "https://coderpad.io/blog/interviewing/quicksort-alex-levine-ticketbud/" last_modified: "2026-06-03 08:49:49" --- [Back to blog](https://coderpad.io/blog/) # Quicksort – How to Nail a Technical Interview at Ticketbud July 9, 2020 2 Minute Read [Interviewing](https://coderpad.io/blog/interviewing/) In our first-ever Quicksort blog, we chat with Alex Levine, Engineering Manager for Ticketbud, on how technical job applicants can stand out. Ticketbud provides a platform for anyone in the world to organize, sell and promote great events for attendees who want to make amazing memories. ### WHAT IS YOUR NAME, TITLE AND CURRENT COMPANY? Alex Levine, Engineering Manager, Ticketbud ### IT’S MY FIRST TIME DOING A TECHNICAL INTERVIEW WITH YOUR COMPANY. BEST PIECE OF ADVICE? We look for people who have great attention to detail. I’m interested if you can follow instructions, check your work, and provide thoughtful responses to our challenges. ### WHAT’S YOUR BIGGEST TECHNICAL INTERVIEW PET PEEVE? Folks submitting code that doesn’t work or doesn’t follow instructions. Happens more than you would think! ### FAVORITE LANGUAGES TO USE DURING INTERVIEWS? Ruby ### SPILL IT: THE CONCEPTS YOU LOVE TO TEST FOR IN LIVE CODING EXERCISES (OR TAKE-HOME PROJECTS) I like to hear candidates talk about design and tradeoffs – I’m looking to see whether they understand proven patterns of building software. I try to give take-home projects that are just complicated enough so some design decisions have to be made and justified. The cost of getting that stuff wrong in a project is high, so it’s good to see if a candidate understands that. ### WHAT’S ONE “HOLY S***, THAT’S COOL” THING YOU WANT PEOPLE TO KNOW ABOUT YOUR COMPANY? We do ticketing for a variety of interesting events, from Christmas festivals to chicken wing festivals to concerts with headliner artists. The code you write at Ticketbud reaches literally millions of people. ### TAKE-HOME PROJECTS VERSUS LIVE CODING EXERCISES? PICK ONE + WHY Take-home projects more accurately simulate what it’s actually like to work on a feature when you’re working at our company. Live coding can’t control for the variety of anxieties and biases we bring to them. However, there should be a good amount of time spent going over your take-home project to discuss decisions and tradeoffs made. Many companies use a take-home project to just ensure the candidate can code and then move on to other exercises, which is a missed opportunity. We don’t do that – we want to see the thought process behind the decisions you’ve made. Quicksort is CoderPad’s blog for job seekers who want to stand out to hiring managers who, by necessity, are moving quickly to sort the best from the rest. Want to share some insights about your company’s hiring process? Contact our [support team](https://coderpad.io/contact/support/). ## Subscribe for more CoderPad insights ## Trending Articles Previous slide Next slide [Interviewing ## 5 Skills of the Future Developer: A Framework for Evaluating AI Fluency According to CoderPad’s State of Tech Hiring 2026 report, 82% of developers now find GenAI useful — up from 76% just a year ago. More telling: 54% of developers would experience a measurable productivity drop if AI tools were removed tomorrow. AI isn’t a productivity booster anymore. It’s infrastructure. 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