I applied online. I interviewed at IXL Learning in Jun 2024
Interview
Please do not waste your time interviewing for the APM role with IXL Learning. Started off with a 30 minute virtual interview with a current APM at the company where I was asked about myself, the jelly bean brain teaser, and the webpage design improvement. Went pretty well and had a 15 minute phone call with the recruiter the next day where she debriefed me on what to expect for the rest of the interview process: take home assignment, third round interview/walkthrough with someone from the company to discuss your take home assignment, and final round interviews with multiple people.
After being given the take home assignment, I spent probably close to 30 hours working on it over the course of 4 days. I made sure my answers were well thought out and thorough. I spent a lot of time making sure I was familiar with IXL's product and interface. For the final part of the assignment, I spent an entire day creating a mockup of their website and designing it to be as professional and as accurate as possible. I was extremely proud and confident in my submission but received a rejection email less than 48 hours later. Didn't bother asking for feedback because I knew from other glassdoor reviews that they would not be providing any.
Honestly its extremely annoying that companies these days will take advantage of the fact that new grads are desperate for jobs and will assign them ridiculous take home assignments just because they know candidates will bend over backwards for them. The take home assignment was quite literally a problem that a full-time APM at the company should be working on, not one of their interview candidates. Completing the assignment honestly felt like unpaid work and yes of course companies have the right to reject people, but not giving them a chance to even talk about their work before rejecting them is extremely disrespectful and inconsiderate of peoples' time and effort in my opinion. I don't really understand how I could've done better as I had experienced people around me give me some feedback before I submitted. While this job would have been amazing, I don't know who this company thinks they are and am tired of them acting like the most prestigious tech company in the bay area with their inconsiderate interview process that just ends up wasting peoples time and energy. If you're reading this, you're probably better off investing your effort elsewhere.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Jellybean question, how would you improve this webpage?
I applied online. I interviewed at IXL Learning (San Mateo, CA)
Interview
Long process, onsite especially was ridiculously long with 6 back to back interviews with different people. Interview with PM -> take home case -> take home case review interview with PM -> full day onsite. Multiple recruiter calls to check in between rounds. Although everyone was very nice and culture seems great, overall unpleasant experience because of how long it was + multiple logistic mistakes by HR that dragged out the process. Can definitely tell they care a lot about their talent pipeline especially for APM and they are very picky for this role (role is open for almost a full year, last APM cohort was just 3 people). Easiest parts of the interviews were logic puzzles and behaviorals. Hardest: asked LC questions in technical interview with engineer during onsite which caught me off guard
Had a quick 30 min interview followed by a take home assessment and was asked to meet with a recruiter to talk about my solution. Didn’t hear back but overall communication was swift.
I was first contacted by a recruiter who told me I would be interviewing with a current product manager. Then, I was told if the product manager liked me, there would be a take home assignment that I would complete and potentially moved to the final round.