I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Serverless Guru (Mexico, TX) in Jul 2025
Interview
I applied for an open engineering role and was quickly moved to the next stage, where I received a complex take-home challenge to design a serverless notification platform, including a detailed write-up, technical diagram, and a video presentation. After submitting my work, I received a generic rejection email stating the role was filled, with no feedback or review of my solution.
Through independent research, I discovered other engineers had been given the exact same challenge and experienced the same generic rejection and lack of review. The process gave the impression that the company may be collecting free design work from candidates rather than genuinely hiring.
Advice to future candidates: Be cautious about investing significant, unpaid time on detailed technical assignments, especially when there is no clear process for reviewing submissions or providing feedback.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a "Notification Platform". Provide a detailed architectural diagram illustrating all components, services, and
their interactions within AWS. A PDF file with a written explanation of your design decisions. Record a video explaining your design and the rationale behind your decisions.
Highlight how your design meets the requirements and any trade-offs considered.
I applied online. I interviewed at Serverless Guru
Interview
Basically this company asks for an architecture challenge right away, before they even speak with you. I refused to do it until I found out that there is some interest. Once I spoke to some folks in their operations team (HR maybe?), I was comfortable enough to put some effort into it.
I spent over 8 hours creating an Architecture diagram, an architecture decision document, and a video presentation of the entire design. The requirement is to upload it to your own Google Drive folder and share it. Three weeks go by and not a single update. I emailed them for an update, and I get a canned response saying to just wait longer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design an architecture, documentation, and video presentation
Hello
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. I am very sorry to hear that you felt let down during the hiring process, especially after dedicating such significant time and effort to the architecture challenge. That is not the experience we want anyone to have with us.
We take feedback seriously and would appreciate the chance to better understand what went wrong in your case. If you're open to it, please contact me at tyler.jones@serverlessguru.com so we can connect and talk through it. Our goal is to improve continuously, and your insight could help us create a better process for future candidates.
Thanks again for your candid feedback, and we hope to hear from you soon.
I applied online. I interviewed at Serverless Guru
Interview
Poor recruitment team and strategy. I applied for a Business Analyst role, as I have around 8 years of experience. Initially, I received an email asking me to record a video about my experience and details, which were already available in the CV I shared. Nevertheless, I sent them the video. Later, I received an email stating that they were moving ahead with another candidate.
I am not sure what strategies they are using to recruit candidates, as they are asking for information already available in the CV. Candidates with substantial experience for the role are simply being evaluated and rejected without an interview!
It would have been great if they had at least conducted an interview to review the candidate's projects and achievements.
Never mind, I wish them good luck and I am posting this to provide better insight for other candidates.