The interview process began with a recruiter phone screen. They covered information about the company that I had already provided in my application, and asked about my expected salary range and whether I would truly be a "remote" employee. These were all questions that could have been answered via email. This phase lasted six minutes.

Next, I participated in a coding interview using Coderpad. The problem was simple, and I apparently performed well. We also discussed my background at length and got a feel for working at Datadog, as we had extra time. I was also asked a couple of straightforward technical questions.

Third was a long delay, followed by a request to write a program that parsed logs in a particular fashion. I prefer not to expose the exact nature of this "homework"-like question, as it was well-designed and they could easily reuse it. I needed a non-Windows development environment to complete it properly, and they waited while I acquired a Linux laptop. They were very flexible with this wait. The program was enjoyable to complete and took about seven hours. They responded two weeks later, stating they liked my submission and wished to fly me to New York City for a final round of interviews.

Fourth were the final interviews. They started with an open-ended question about a project I had spearheaded at a previous company. The discussion centered on "could you have done this more simply" and included suggestions for alternative approaches. This was a one-on-one with the CTO, who exuded intelligence. He convinced me there was another way to accomplish what I had done previously and helped me walk through such a solution.

The second on-site interview was with a member of the team I would be joining. This was also a one-on-one. He posed a very simple whiteboard programming question, which I solved in about two minutes. He then asked more about my background and allowed me to ask questions about him and his experience with Datadog. It was a very pleasant interaction.

We had a team lunch afterward, which was nice and paid for by the company.

The final interview was quite amorphous. It was with the team lead I would be working with. He asked a couple of questions about my use of their product. As I had substantial experience with it, these questions were appropriate. He also asked a bit more about my experience with my previous company.

I was told I would receive an offer or rejection within "a couple of days." However, I had to repeatedly email them to get a response, which they finally provided a full week later. It was a canned rejection stating they were looking for someone with a background that more closely aligned with their needs, though they never clearly articulated exactly what they were looking for.

This was an expensive and extremely time-consuming interview process. Most of the individual components were well-designed, but the largely unexplained waiting period over two months was, ultimately, quite rude.

How could you have written a previous program I wrote more simply?