The interview process can be very useful if you’re looking for practice handling ambiguity early in your job search, as it builds experience and confidence; however, roughly 20% of customer reviews report bait-and-switch tactics, so ethically, proceed with caution.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Found (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2022
Interview
Here's the process as I understood it:
1. After a LinkedIn message, had a chat with a recruiter
2. Initial tech screen with head of engineering
3. Synchronous solo project - you're given an assignment and 2 hours to work on it. After the assignment, there's a panel interview with the engineering team where you walk them through your project
4. 1:1 conversations
I didn't make it to step 4 but my experience overall was good. Ultimately I think it was a fair decision to reject me, but I could have also been better apprised of the process so I could have been better prepared.
For step 3, you're asked to create an API and a db that fulfills certain business requirements. you're able to choose any framework to implement your solution, which is good. Unfortunately, for some reason, I started having technical difficulties trying to install my needed packages from npm. After panicking and trying to fix this for about an hour, I finally employed a workaround and started working on a solution. Naturally, I didn't get very far in my solution and ended up running out of time. Instead of the expected live DB & models, I had written out example models in code and had not fleshed out the queries very well. The technical difficulties really threw me off my game, and the panel interview after with 5 people judging your solution and popcorn-style asking you questions didn't help the nerves either. While I enjoyed the process more than the typical ds & algos style interview as it's way more real-world-oriented, it does have some potential pitfalls.
My advice would be to have an easy, reliable way to scaffold a project (BE server & db) locally so that you're not at the mercy of npm. Also possibly set up Docker and co, to have a reliable way to run things in case you hose your local install. Basically, assume the cloud will fail you during the solo project and plan accordingly.
As for the project itself, be sure to think through the problem well and be prepared to speak to changing requirements. Advice here is of course to make your models & code easily adaptable.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Create a live API that hits a DB and fulfills certain business requirements.
Hi! Thank you so much for your transparent review of our interview process. Your feedback will help us calibrate and get better at building the best in class candidate experience. We are honored that you took the time to interview with us. We've relayed this information back to the interviewers, so thanks again. We wish you all the best!
