A recruiter reached out to me. I'm happy at my current job, but it sounded like a good opportunity, so I decided to give it a go.

Had a phone screen, which involved a difficult coding challenge on coderpad.io. It required a full solution plus test cases.

Later, I got the good news that I did well on the phone screen and the team wanted to proceed to the onsite. The campus in SF is quite nice: a bright, open space with themed rooms. You might be thinking, "Wow...is this place amazing...look, actual beer/wine/kombucha on tap and fancy food treats everywhere."

Then the interviews started. There were:

• 2 coding interviews
• 2 cross-functional interviews
• 1 experience interview
• 1 architecture interview

The coding problems were pretty typical. Review graphs, DP, and standard algorithm approaches. I'm not sharing the questions because I signed an NDA, and it wouldn't help you anyway, as they'll just have a different question of the week when you get your turn. You bring your own laptop and code the solution in your own IDE, which is different. Personally, I felt like it gave me an advantage and wish everyone else would do this as well. The coding problems were medium level, and I didn't have issues completing them.

Cross-functional interviews were like standard behavioral questions, but you get a feeling they're seeing if you truly belong in their fraternity/cult because the questions were just weird (e.g., "What problem would you solve in the world today?" "What does it mean to you to belong anywhere?"). Whatever...they're looking for real Kool-Aid drinkers.

Architecture involved some high-level design that was as clear as mud, designed to test how you break it down and clarify questions.

The experience interview is where they basically have you talk in technical detail on a whiteboard about how you solved a challenging problem in the past. I had a nagging suspicion that this is basically a brain-rape session for them to get ideas from you on how to fix their own problems. So, I would urge that the NDA goes both ways at this point. Don't go giving away clever strategic advantages here. Personally, I think this loop is very bogus and shouldn't be done. Ask me high-level details, what I learned, and what I could have changed, but a deep drill-down into solutions made me question if I should really be telling them about how much I kicked butt in a previous project, especially when the interviewer says afterward, "Very interesting...we're looking at a similar problem on my team."

I got an answer two days later that I had strong "signals" across most interviews except for one. The one they mentioned surprised me, as it was probably what I would call my better loop. Don't expect to get any kind of useful feedback. In the end, you're just left scratching your head, thinking, "Just what are they looking for, exactly?"

I don't think I'll consider re-applying. It was a weird experience.

What does it mean to belong anywhere?

What large problems in the world would you solve today?