There were 2 recruiters in the process.
5 interview stages + many calls with recruiters:
* Chat with one of manager - the manager was disengaged and unprepared;
* Architectural interview - with senior engineer;
* Systems interview - with staff IC - it was a mix of coding and system design; Was quite in-depth and fun, although a bit wierd.
* Management interview - by a director of engineering - best interview, great vibe, questions and
* Technical fit - with other managers - you have to defend that you are technical enough, by sharing in-depth about the system you are working now. This is where I failed. I'm questioning validity of this interview - I was explaining about a system I was implementing myself for 3 years and I got feedback that I'm not in-depth enough.
My main complain is that the second recruiter was completely disengaged:
* ignored joining on of the calls;
* joined to the interview while driving a car;
Due to complexity of the interview process having a good recruiter is a must.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Databricks (San Francisco, CA) in Feb 2026
Interview
Standard interview process; but you need to get yes in all of them. System design was hardest. Even if you get green light from everyone, the packet needs to get approved by the hiring committee, and will need references from your current/prior companies.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
leadership & vision, system design, hiring, team management, etc.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Databricks (Amsterdam) in Aug 2025
Interview
Interview process significantly broken and unpleasant.
I interviewed for an EM role in Amsterdam. 'System-programming' interview question was more appropriate for a 2-3 hours home-assignment than for a 1-hour interview. Surprisingly I passed. Management skills interviewers seemed openly antagonistic. Cut me every few words; Where evidently not really listening. Between the lines it seemed their culture is extremely focused on the tactical and short-term, with zero tolerance for any type of medium or high-level leadership.
In general, it felt like they were not interested in my skills at all, and were just going through the motions of the process. Ultimately got ghosted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
SD: Design an object-store system. A highly simplified version of Amazon S3.
HM interview, panel presentation with directors and staff engs, and then several rounds of technical competency and architecture. It was well organized but a little stiff. They encourage you to have other offers and prefer candidates who are still in their current roles.