I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at DeepSpin (Berlin) in Jan 2023
Interview
I saw their ad from LinkedIn, then redirected me to their on-line application portal. About a month after I applied, I received an automated e-mail from their HR person, who gave me a 30-minute on-line technical assessment. On this e-mail, I was asked explicitly to "take this challenge seriously, as most people fail this".
These questions covered the absolute rudiments on programming. About half of these were high-school level programming trivia. Someone with basic experience with git and undergrad level numerical methods will have no trouble answering all the questions correctly. While these questions were insultingly simple, I did appreciate that they didn't take so much time (I finished early) and they did not try to use this assessment as pretext for getting free work done.
I finished the test and informed the HR person. After about a month of radio silence I received an automated rejection e-mail, for the reason that I "don't have the required qualifications". Perhaps my answers didn't match what they had. However, judging from the two month turnaround time for a half-hearted initial screening, maybe they were just window shopping for a purple unicorn.
Or they didn't think I took the test seriously enough. Speaking of which, if these questions seriously indicate the technical expertise of this outfit, they will need a lot of purple unicorns. More likely, the test might just be an honest reflection on how seriously they take their applicants themselves.
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