Experience Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California
Process
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Simple recruiter interview with a nice human.
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Slack interview with product that had good questions, actually vetting you for the job.
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Technical code challenge: Front-End Challenge involves making PRs for a WordPress plugin. They are super stringent about random technical things. Work in PHP and vanillaJS on a UI that looks like it is from 1999.
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More interviews with humans.
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A "trial" period where you work together.
Questions
What would you change about WordPress or WordPress.com?
Why are you interested in Automattic?
How do you balance tech debt and feature requests?
Front-end code challenge: Audit parts of a WordPress plugin for security.
How many unique keys are possible with wp_generate_password(8, true, false)? It's a factorial algorithm problem.
Make edits to a WordPress plugin installed on your Git account.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Automattic Experience Engineer role in San Francisco, California.
Success Rate
Automattic's interview process for their Experience Engineer roles in San Francisco, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Automattic's Experience Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.
Automattic Work Experiences
- 3.0A good place to work.Mobile Wrangler • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesMay 13, 2025Pros: A company that values its employees and treats them as human beings.Cons: No product vision, no product leadership.
- 2.0Personally, the main reason I stayed at this company was because of the benefits of working remotely.Software Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesApril 4, 2025Pros: - Flexibility of working remotely - Everyone outside of the leadership team has been amazing—friendly, respectful, intelligent, dedicated, passionate, and truly talented. Honestly.Cons: The leadership team has no idea what they're doing; there's never a clear direction or company roadmap. Despite many people actively and earnestly raising concerns multiple times, nothing has come of it. With the current capabilities of the leadership team and the size of the projects, the company feels like an overextended small-to-medium business. The layoffs were cold and inhumane — which would be alright if the company hadn't consistently promoted values like kindness, respect, and transparency, or kept emphasizing that Automattic has your back and that you can treat this place as your home.
- 4.0Great place to workSenior Software Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesFebruary 24, 2025Pros: Fully remote, distributed teams Competitive salary Friendly and supportive cultureCons: They make controversial decisions for the open source community.
