I applied online. I interviewed at Pinecone Systems in Mar 2024
Interview
Had about 7 rounds, overall process took 1.5 months that started off messy and ended up being just comical. Began with a recruiter call, then a 4 problem OA assessment via Codesignal, then interview with the hiring manager. Hiring manager looked more nervous than I was during the call and left no time for me to ask questions about the role or company, but I moved on to the next round anyway which was a tech screen. Recruiter told me tech screen would be 60 minutes and involve both system design and a coding exercise. I have never seen a company do both system design and coding in one 60 min interview so I clarified with the recruiter on this format. Recruiter confirmed it would be both system design and coding in 60 minutes. Show up to the interview and it happens to be just a coding exercise which involves a board game, no system design was mentioned? Confused by the interviewing process and still have no clue what the role entails I move on to the final round. Final round is 4 interviews with a FE React exercise, coding exercise, system design, and then PM interview. Imagine my surprise when I was asked the same board game question from the first tech screen in my FE React interview! Never knew that DSA could be asked in a FE interview and yet it happened. FE interviewer was confused by the problem's requirements as well, which did not help and it goes without saying the FE interview went poorly. Did not help that the recruiter said that interview would be in Typescript, which I confirmed twice with them. FE interview ended up being entirely in Javascript. Due to technical issues this FE interview was running late, but since interviews were scheduled back to back with not even 1 minute between rounds, I showed up late to my next interview. Next coding exercise interview was a common LC medium question, and the interviewer appeared to be having lunch while interviewing me? Happy that they had a tasty meal. Next interview was system design, or so they claimed it would be. Turned out system design was an OOD coding exercise! At this point I am not even fazed simply impressed by this level of miscommunication. This interview goes well as the problem was relatively straightforward. Luckily I finally get a chance to learn about the team and what Pinecone does, only took me 6 rounds to learn about this! Next interview is PM interview and at this point in the process I am half-expecting to be asked about quantum physics. I am happily surprised that the PM interview is in fact a standard PM interview process and thankfully I do get to understand what the team does and learn more about the growth of the company. Received a standard rejection email a few days later. Overall I would recommend interviewing here only if you need a bootcamp on how to survive interviews where nothing goes to plan and you want to gain nerves of steel. If you are not trying to subject yourself to this style of interview I would suggest applying to other companies.
I’m really sorry that you had such a frustrating experience during our interview process. We really appreciate the feedback and we’re reviewing our interview procedure to iron out these kinks and ensure a more positive experience for candidates going forward. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.