I enjoyed the process.

However, the people who interviewed me had just 4-5 years of experience and were already engineering managers. I got a sense that they believed we're a "$2B valuation" company now, so we're cool!

I've been a founder in three companies now, with two successful exits. I've also built large teams and have taken countless system design interviews. In this case, however, I felt the interviewers were unprepared. Their only approach was asking vague, tough questions with no plan to allow either me or themselves to drive the conversation.

I hope the company does not slip into mediocrity because of its hubris.

I was asked a super vague question about building a recommendation engine for a product that does not fall within the universe of providing recommendations. I did take it as a sign of it being vague, with the interviewer probably trying to figure out how I clarify questions and move forward.

I threw a million clarifying questions trying to understand what exactly he was asking. His answers went from vague to outright ridiculous. At one point, I felt he didn't know what he wanted.

I did run the question through my acquaintances in the ML field, and they found it super amusing.

Finally, the HR sent me an email telling me we can't move forward. All other emails to her asking for any feedback went unanswered.

The CTO has very similar experience to mine and is trying to mirror Spotify's culture. Hopefully, they don't fall flat going forward.

I won't state the exact questions because of professional courtesy.

• One was how to build recommendation engines (I don't come from an ML background, neither was the role for an ML background, and my interviewer was a front-end developer with 5 years of experience).
• The other one revolved around building a mapping service.