Taro Logo

Staff Software Engineer Interview Experience

July 8, 2020
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I applied online. The process took 2 weeks.

The first interview with a developer went well. It was a friendly discussion where both myself and the developer got to ask questions to get an idea of our backgrounds and skill. The second interviewer seemed hostile from the start. He was not friendly and never really smiled. Having done more than a thousand tech interviews myself on both sides of the table, I could tell that he was going through the motions and had already made up his mind. He was just looking for any minor reason to disqualify me from getting an offer. He was very religious about the language and tools that they were using on their project when I asked.

The biggest red flag for me was his inability to have even minor eye contact for short periods of time during the interview. My background, demonstrated success, and technical ability in my career just did not matter at all to this guy. When I asked if I did OK, he just mumbled "sure...". It had to be one of the most disingenuous and rude interviews I've ever experienced. HR got back to me a few days later with a cookie-cutter rejection letter that read like a cowardly text message breakup.

My overall impression of this company and its interview process felt like I was talking to people trapped in some kind of cult. This was based on the fact that no matter my questions, they would only speak of the company as perfect, with everyone at the leadership level having no flaws or faults. It was a really bad look for this company. I will be warning my professional network against even considering this place.

Questions

Irrelevant bike-shedding questions about language details.

Was this helpful?

Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 4 interview experiences for the Kraken Staff Software Engineer role.

Success Rate

50%
Pass Rate

Kraken's interview process for their Staff Software Engineer roles is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive75%
Neutral0%
Negative25%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Kraken's Staff Software Engineer interview process.

Kraken Work Experiences