PagerDuty

Dev Tools Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California

August 1, 2015

Positive ExperienceNo Offer

Process

The interview process consisted of an initial phone screen, two remote sessions for coding/troubleshooting, and an on-site interview that lasted all day (10 - 5).

The on-site interview was broken into multiple sessions with two breaks, one hour for lunch and 30 minutes for coffee/tea in the late afternoon. Some of the sessions were q&a and some were coding and hands-on tasks.

Questions

I was asked a lot of questions about how I would troubleshoot a given problem, improve a given design, approach a given situation, or implement a given thing. I was also given one assignment to complete a set of tasks on unix and two coding assignments. Each assignment was limited to one hour.

The goal of the first coding assignment was to build a 4-page web app that took input from the user and interacted with a data store. The goal of the second coding assignment was to analyze web server logs and find the most popular path.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the PagerDuty Dev Tools Engineer role in San Francisco, California.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

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

Experience Rating

Positive100%

Neutral0%

Negative0%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for PagerDuty's Dev Tools Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.

PagerDuty Work Experiences

Fast moving

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: There are good people, interesting work and massive growth. There's also a dedicated happiness team that responds to requests for everything from hardware to beer selection. Great location if you live in the city with lots of bike parking.

Cons: The customers are very vocal, so there's always a fire to put out. There is an element of being on call for many roles.

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: There are good people, interesting work and massive growth. There's also a dedicated happiness team that responds to requests for everything from hardware to beer selection. Great location if you live in the city with lots of bike parking.

Cons: The customers are very vocal, so there's always a fire to put out. There is an element of being on call for many roles.

Potential(ly) at risk

Software Engineer • Former Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: Most PD employees are super nice and in general the company has tons of emotional intelligence. Lots of support for underrepresented groups, especially through employee resource groups. Good diversity stats compared to the industry and region (board and execs included). Managers go on-call too, not just line level workers. Work/life balance was quite reasonable, although it depends significantly on the team. Ask lots of questions about the on-call load for the specific team you're considering joining.

Cons: There is a strong tendency to cargo cult technical decisions and appeal to authority in discussions, which was probably exacerbated by... There is a cultural fear of being wrong, caused by a small group in engineering who treat every interaction as a battle to be won. It wasn't uncommon for people to express fear of asking questions in certain channels out of fear of one of these people (or their emulators) making them feel stupid. The engineering department probably wastes half its budget redoing work to use increasingly niche technologies as top engineers' interests meander. Most valuable stuff is owned by a team and a rotation, so if you're not a manager or lead, opportunities for individual ownership can be limited, which can make career growth challenging beyond the early career.

Potential(ly) at risk

Software Engineer • Former Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: Most PD employees are super nice and in general the company has tons of emotional intelligence. Lots of support for underrepresented groups, especially through employee resource groups. Good diversity stats compared to the industry and region (board and execs included). Managers go on-call too, not just line level workers. Work/life balance was quite reasonable, although it depends significantly on the team. Ask lots of questions about the on-call load for the specific team you're considering joining.

Cons: There is a strong tendency to cargo cult technical decisions and appeal to authority in discussions, which was probably exacerbated by... There is a cultural fear of being wrong, caused by a small group in engineering who treat every interaction as a battle to be won. It wasn't uncommon for people to express fear of asking questions in certain channels out of fear of one of these people (or their emulators) making them feel stupid. The engineering department probably wastes half its budget redoing work to use increasingly niche technologies as top engineers' interests meander. Most valuable stuff is owned by a team and a rotation, so if you're not a manager or lead, opportunities for individual ownership can be limited, which can make career growth challenging beyond the early career.

One of the best companies I have worked for

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: Amazing team and leadership. The management genuinely takes the time to get feedback from employees and improve. The company culture is pretty awesome and there are a lot of opportunities to work on interesting engineering problems. There is a good work-life balance.

Cons: Growing competition, especially from big players, means PagerDuty has a lot of work ahead of it to come out on top.

One of the best companies I have worked for

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: Amazing team and leadership. The management genuinely takes the time to get feedback from employees and improve. The company culture is pretty awesome and there are a lot of opportunities to work on interesting engineering problems. There is a good work-life balance.

Cons: Growing competition, especially from big players, means PagerDuty has a lot of work ahead of it to come out on top.

Fast moving

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: There are good people, interesting work and massive growth. There's also a dedicated happiness team that responds to requests for everything from hardware to beer selection. Great location if you live in the city with lots of bike parking.

Cons: The customers are very vocal, so there's always a fire to put out. There is an element of being on call for many roles.

5.0
Fast moving
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California
July 29, 2013
Pros: There are good people, interesting work and massive growth. There's also a dedicated happiness team that responds to requests for everything from hardware to beer selection. Great location if you live in the city with lots of bike parking.
Cons: The customers are very vocal, so there's always a fire to put out. There is an element of being on call for many roles.

Potential(ly) at risk

Software Engineer • Former Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: Most PD employees are super nice and in general the company has tons of emotional intelligence. Lots of support for underrepresented groups, especially through employee resource groups. Good diversity stats compared to the industry and region (board and execs included). Managers go on-call too, not just line level workers. Work/life balance was quite reasonable, although it depends significantly on the team. Ask lots of questions about the on-call load for the specific team you're considering joining.

Cons: There is a strong tendency to cargo cult technical decisions and appeal to authority in discussions, which was probably exacerbated by... There is a cultural fear of being wrong, caused by a small group in engineering who treat every interaction as a battle to be won. It wasn't uncommon for people to express fear of asking questions in certain channels out of fear of one of these people (or their emulators) making them feel stupid. The engineering department probably wastes half its budget redoing work to use increasingly niche technologies as top engineers' interests meander. Most valuable stuff is owned by a team and a rotation, so if you're not a manager or lead, opportunities for individual ownership can be limited, which can make career growth challenging beyond the early career.

3.0
Potential(ly) at risk
Software Engineer • Former Employee
San Francisco, California
June 14, 2020
Pros: Most PD employees are super nice and in general the company has tons of emotional intelligence. Lots of support for underrepresented groups, especially through employee resource groups. Good diversity stats compared to the industry and region (board and execs included). Managers go on-call too, not just line level workers. Work/life balance was quite reasonable, although it depends significantly on the team. Ask lots of questions about the on-call load for the specific team you're considering joining.
Cons: There is a strong tendency to cargo cult technical decisions and appeal to authority in discussions, which was probably exacerbated by... There is a cultural fear of being wrong, caused by a small group in engineering who treat every interaction as a battle to be won. It wasn't uncommon for people to express fear of asking questions in certain channels out of fear of one of these people (or their emulators) making them feel stupid. The engineering department probably wastes half its budget redoing work to use increasingly niche technologies as top engineers' interests meander. Most valuable stuff is owned by a team and a rotation, so if you're not a manager or lead, opportunities for individual ownership can be limited, which can make career growth challenging beyond the early career.

One of the best companies I have worked for

Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California

Pros: Amazing team and leadership. The management genuinely takes the time to get feedback from employees and improve. The company culture is pretty awesome and there are a lot of opportunities to work on interesting engineering problems. There is a good work-life balance.

Cons: Growing competition, especially from big players, means PagerDuty has a lot of work ahead of it to come out on top.

5.0
One of the best companies I have worked for
Senior Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California
July 23, 2020
Pros: Amazing team and leadership. The management genuinely takes the time to get feedback from employees and improve. The company culture is pretty awesome and there are a lot of opportunities to work on interesting engineering problems. There is a good work-life balance.
Cons: Growing competition, especially from big players, means PagerDuty has a lot of work ahead of it to come out on top.

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