I applied through LinkedIn to join Datadog Paris.

1. Phone interview with a technical recruiter. He was really nice and relevant.

• Tell me about you and your education.
• What are you interested in.
• What languages/tools do you feel comfortable with.
• Other generic questions.

1. Screen interview with an engineer. The first part was about a personal project. It was very open-ended; I wasn't sure what the interviewer was looking for beyond having a conversation.

• Tell me about a technical project you worked on.
• Questions related to my project.
• Two medium algorithm questions over video call on CoderPad: string manipulation and recursivity.

1. Take-home assignment to be done within 7 days. It takes 10-12 hours to complete. They expect robust and documented code. Take the time to detail your areas for improvement in your README.

• Write an HTTP log monitor.

I received short feedback which was basically useless. Be careful; they seem to be excessively picky about this challenge.

1. Three on-site interviews (1 hour each).

• First interview: algorithm questions. A string manipulation problem with several improvements to be done.
• Second interview: system design. An open-ended problem where you have to design a large-scale system.
• Third interview: informal discussion with a tech lead. He had a lot of respect, enthusiasm, and interest.

The tech recruiter provided vague feedback after the on-site.

My experience was neutral. The recruitment process was too long. I only received positive feedback throughout the steps, except for the system design interview where I slightly underperformed. This apparently caused my rejection. I feel like I invested a lot of energy, and their explanations did not really convince me. Also, an HR promised me that my transportation costs would be reimbursed, but this is still not the case after two months. Other than that, the people I met were really nice.

String manipulation problems

Recursive problems