I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Contextual AI (California City, CA) in Jul 2025
Interview
3 Round Interviews:
1) Interview with team lead: This was a general intro and code walkthrough interview, interviewer was really impressed with my project and my past hackathon wins
2) Interview with head of marketing: We talked about my past experience with RAG technology, my interest in company and discussed latest MCPs, and where RAG technology is heading toward.
3) Technical Lead Interview: Probably the best experience I had, we discussed about OpenAI agents, he gave me a presentation about their technology, we discussed traditional issues with RAG technologies, and shared my experience working on similar stuff.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give me a reason that could lead you to potentially decline the opportunity to join Contextual AI?
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Contextual AI
Interview
First interview was with their head of talent
- i liked that he was transparent about challenges they are facing on the recruiting team and the company as a whole.
- he made it seem like this process needed to be expedited for the following week because he needed someone pretty urgently
Virtual on-site was with 3 people at a half hour each
This overall was a quick & straight forward, but the vibes felt off. I did not get the impression they really don’t care about candidate experience given that I heard nothing after the on-site interview. Disappointed because the head of talent made a point to say how much he values candidate experience and how much it is important that they have a good reputation with the recruiting org
I would rather a company just say sorry, not moving forward then to just not say a word to a candidate who invested time and what not
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you train interviewers to use scorecards in greenhouse
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Contextual AI (San Francisco, CA) in Dec 2023
Interview
Met with a member of the team, and had a great chat. He moved me along to the next round which consisted of a take home project that needed to be completed 2 hours before the interview. Got it done, and got good feedback. On-site consisted of 3 rounds: behavioral, technical, and system design.
Worst interview process I've ever been through. I had my on-site canceled mid way through the loop with zero feedback. I ended up getting rejected mid way through it with zero feedback. The CEO was extremely rude, and unprofessional.
