Commure

I recently completed a full stack coding round at Commure. Commure is a startup that's trying to centralize and simplify the "back office work" that clinicians have to do. As mission driven as you can get :) After the initial Python technical screen, I had a 75 minute full stack coding round. ## Preparation You are expected to come with a local IDE setup. You cannot use any AI autocomplete or AI chat in the IDE, so I'd recommend vanilla VS Code. You have to share screen The full stack app must be a Python backend (use stuff like FastAPI, Django, Flask) and the frontend is framework agnostic. Since you can setup the codebase as you wish, I would take full advantage of that. Try to reduce as much developer friction as possible and use good codebase structure practice. 75 minutes flies by quick! I went with a FastAPI backend with a React + Vite + TypeScript frontend. In terms of file structure, I had a frontend/ directory and a backend/ directory. * frontend/ directory was created with npm create vite@latest frontend -- --template react-ts. I would recommend yarn as your package manager for FE, but you can refer to these docs. I wrote a basic component to enter a key/value pair and then click submit. All the entered key/value pairs are enumerated below the form. I used axios to setup a basic src/api/client.ts file to have a wrapper for calling the fast api backend. It's ok to just use localhost as the server port, so no worries there. I also created some wrappers on the FE to call the dummy FastAPI endpoints * backend/ directory was created for the FastAPI code. I ran a uv init in the backend/ directory so that we have an easy to use package manager! I followed these docs to setup my directory structure and write a few basic REST endpoints. Think "hello world REST API endpoints". I would recommend adding python dependencies like black, requests just in case ### Why all this setup Realistically, this setup took me a solid hour, but it was well worth it! * Reduce your developer friction * You actually may impress the interviewer. Mine was really impressed I came with a clean setup. Common mistake according to the interviewer is candidates just coming with the IDE but then have to install all the dependencies and wire up FE and BE. * Best practices for structuring your code are self explanatory because you followed the standard conventions! * You have a pattern/blueprint for how to create new BE endpoints and also how to have the FE call your new endpoint! You want to make maintainability and working on your OWN codebase easy and predictable * You essentially have a "cheat sheet" of the common patterns for your framework of choice. Saves a bunch of google search lookups ## The actual task Build connect 4 as per the rules. * piece falls as far down as possible * 6x7 board * win condition (4 in row, diagonal, column) * reset button to restart the game Don't worry about setting up DBs and ORMs. Assume any data on the backend lives in memory. ## Reflections * Restate your understanding of the requirements in your own words * Communicate what you're doing as you're coding. Make sure the interviewer follows along and isn't confused. They can't help you if you don't communicate * Keep the prototype simple. Make it work, make it right, then make it fast.