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Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California

May 18, 2019
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

TL;DR: I should have looked at the Glassdoor reviews before picking up the phone. Don't waste your time here – many red flags about their culture.

  • A technical sourcer reached out to me for a role that sounded great. The job description was for a specific role, written to be very inclusive and right up my alley and skillset.
  • The technical sourcer was slow to reply and finally scheduled a recruiter call.
  • The recruiter said she got double-booked and rescheduled the day before.
  • The recruiter was late to the call and didn't apologize or acknowledge.
  • The recruiter was disorganized during the call. She asked what my background was, even though she was looking at my resume or LinkedIn. She said they weren't looking for non-traditional backgrounds and had an extremely haughty and dismissive attitude around my abilities (I declined to mention that I have previously had a FAANG offer). She asked what role I applied for (hello, your technical sourcer reached out to me; I didn't apply to anything).
  • The recruiter then said they'd be happy to do a technical interview anyway, which they outsource to a third-party company. I was ghosted anyway.

From this and other reviews, it seems the technical sourcer and recruiters aren't aligned at all and are fairly disorganized. It also seems the engineers there only care about finding people who can solve complex algorithmic problems, regardless of any other applicable skills. They appear to have a better-than-thou attitude that prevents them from interviewing people they would work with day-to-day.

Like hires like – maybe 300 Leetcode hard problems are really relevant to their day-to-day job. Maybe they're secretly a think tank for solving P vs. NP. But overall, I'd avoid this company unless that's the kind of culture you're looking for, or you love wasting your time.

Questions

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 24 interview experiences for the Databricks Software Engineer role in San Francisco, California.

Success Rate

8%
Pass Rate

Databricks's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in San Francisco, California is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive33%
Neutral21%
Negative46%

Candidates reported having negative feelings for Databricks's Software Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.

Databricks Work Experiences