SendGrid

Front End Engineer Interview Experience - Denver, Colorado

February 1, 2019

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

It took almost two months for SendGrid to respond to my application. The interview process consisted of four parts:

Cultural interview with HR
Technical interview with the hiring manager
On-site interview
Another manager interview

I passed the cultural interview with flying colors and thought the technical interview went pretty okay. I had heard the technical interview was hard, so I studied for a few days beforehand. I wasn't able to answer a couple of questions that were for a more advanced developer. Despite being told that it was okay not to know, I guess it mattered.

I received a canned rejection reply from HR. The whole experience smacked of being against one of their cultural "H"s – honesty – which has made me think that they are a company that talks the talk but is unable to walk the walk.

Questions

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the SendGrid Front End Engineer role in Denver, Colorado.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

SendGrid's interview process for their Front End Engineer roles in Denver, Colorado is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%

Neutral0%

Negative100%

Candidates reported having very negative feelings for SendGrid's Front End Engineer interview process in Denver, Colorado.

SendGrid Work Experiences

Fast-growing, profitable. Great people and perks, acceptable salaries.

Front End Engineer • Current Employee

Redwood City, CA

November 2, 2015

Pros: Profitable company with solid growth ahead of it. SendGrid is a world leader in transactional email - receipts, forgot password, etc. We just released a brand-new product to target marketers, which is a higher-volume segment of the total email market, as well as a specialty product for marketing automation (which we expect to pick up speed very fast, as more marketers demand triggered emails for things like shopping cart abandonment or new signups). As a result, they're able to offer excellent perks to employees, and options stand to be valuable in the near term. SendGrid has figured out how to make distributed teams work. We can hire in any of the four major offices, and collaborate over a distance. I'm working with about 300 friendly and helpful coworkers as of this review. Employees really do "walk the walk" of the company's values: hungry, humble, honest, and happy. It's been a pleasure working with my team, and I really appreciate the transparency shown to employees by upper management. Sameer - the current CEO - and the co-founders are all smart, warm, and personable. Senior management hires great people and trusts them to get the job done.

Cons: Salaries are finally catching up to the market, but they weren't always that way. Early employees don't seem to get many chances for advancement, and mid-level management, generally hired from outside, feels a bit green at times. It's a tricky balance; we need experienced managers, but we also need to reward the people who helped build it with opportunities for professional development. This is probably a natural problem for a mid-stage company like ours to have.

Fast-growing, profitable. Great people and perks, acceptable salaries.

Front End Engineer • Current Employee

Redwood City, CA

November 2, 2015

Pros: Profitable company with solid growth ahead of it. SendGrid is a world leader in transactional email - receipts, forgot password, etc. We just released a brand-new product to target marketers, which is a higher-volume segment of the total email market, as well as a specialty product for marketing automation (which we expect to pick up speed very fast, as more marketers demand triggered emails for things like shopping cart abandonment or new signups). As a result, they're able to offer excellent perks to employees, and options stand to be valuable in the near term. SendGrid has figured out how to make distributed teams work. We can hire in any of the four major offices, and collaborate over a distance. I'm working with about 300 friendly and helpful coworkers as of this review. Employees really do "walk the walk" of the company's values: hungry, humble, honest, and happy. It's been a pleasure working with my team, and I really appreciate the transparency shown to employees by upper management. Sameer - the current CEO - and the co-founders are all smart, warm, and personable. Senior management hires great people and trusts them to get the job done.

Cons: Salaries are finally catching up to the market, but they weren't always that way. Early employees don't seem to get many chances for advancement, and mid-level management, generally hired from outside, feels a bit green at times. It's a tricky balance; we need experienced managers, but we also need to reward the people who helped build it with opportunities for professional development. This is probably a natural problem for a mid-stage company like ours to have.

Exciting and Challenging

Software Engineer • Current Employee

February 4, 2016

Pros: Passionate, smart, and friendly people work here! There are many challenging problems to solve as a software engineer, particularly related to scale. This year is going to be crucial as we enter and expand in new markets. The 4 H's in the culture are not just lip service; they can truly be seen here everyday: Happy, Humble, Hungry, and Honest. I'm happy to see that the bar has been raised for new hires in 2016. Oh yeah, the office managers rock and keep us well fed!

Cons: Deploying code takes more time than it should, and communication could be better between teams across the company, but it's getting better. Attrition was high in 2015 as the company matured. We've accumulated tech debt from earlier days that has caused some nasty outages, but the good news is that it's a high priority and being reduced.

Exciting and Challenging

Software Engineer • Current Employee

February 4, 2016

Pros: Passionate, smart, and friendly people work here! There are many challenging problems to solve as a software engineer, particularly related to scale. This year is going to be crucial as we enter and expand in new markets. The 4 H's in the culture are not just lip service; they can truly be seen here everyday: Happy, Humble, Hungry, and Honest. I'm happy to see that the bar has been raised for new hires in 2016. Oh yeah, the office managers rock and keep us well fed!

Cons: Deploying code takes more time than it should, and communication could be better between teams across the company, but it's getting better. Attrition was high in 2015 as the company matured. We've accumulated tech debt from earlier days that has caused some nasty outages, but the good news is that it's a high priority and being reduced.

Hands down the best place I've worked

Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: Hiring people with the 4H mentality makes it much easier to ensure we're all mature enough to get along even when things go badly. There are lots and lots of perks at the company.

Cons: Management layers weren't really in place very strongly when I worked there, though it was much better by the time I left. This caused a ton of changes (mostly process) while management figured out what to do, but it showed they cared about the employees to do so. But it was pretty jarring for engineers for a while. Much better now, I think.

Hands down the best place I've worked

Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: Hiring people with the 4H mentality makes it much easier to ensure we're all mature enough to get along even when things go badly. There are lots and lots of perks at the company.

Cons: Management layers weren't really in place very strongly when I worked there, though it was much better by the time I left. This caused a ton of changes (mostly process) while management figured out what to do, but it showed they cared about the employees to do so. But it was pretty jarring for engineers for a while. Much better now, I think.

Fast-growing, profitable. Great people and perks, acceptable salaries.

Front End Engineer • Current Employee

Redwood City, CA

November 2, 2015

Pros: Profitable company with solid growth ahead of it. SendGrid is a world leader in transactional email - receipts, forgot password, etc. We just released a brand-new product to target marketers, which is a higher-volume segment of the total email market, as well as a specialty product for marketing automation (which we expect to pick up speed very fast, as more marketers demand triggered emails for things like shopping cart abandonment or new signups). As a result, they're able to offer excellent perks to employees, and options stand to be valuable in the near term. SendGrid has figured out how to make distributed teams work. We can hire in any of the four major offices, and collaborate over a distance. I'm working with about 300 friendly and helpful coworkers as of this review. Employees really do "walk the walk" of the company's values: hungry, humble, honest, and happy. It's been a pleasure working with my team, and I really appreciate the transparency shown to employees by upper management. Sameer - the current CEO - and the co-founders are all smart, warm, and personable. Senior management hires great people and trusts them to get the job done.

Cons: Salaries are finally catching up to the market, but they weren't always that way. Early employees don't seem to get many chances for advancement, and mid-level management, generally hired from outside, feels a bit green at times. It's a tricky balance; we need experienced managers, but we also need to reward the people who helped build it with opportunities for professional development. This is probably a natural problem for a mid-stage company like ours to have.

5.0
Fast-growing, profitable. Great people and perks, acceptable salaries.
Front End Engineer • Current Employee
Redwood City, CA
November 2, 2015
Pros: Profitable company with solid growth ahead of it. SendGrid is a world leader in transactional email - receipts, forgot password, etc. We just released a brand-new product to target marketers, which is a higher-volume segment of the total email market, as well as a specialty product for marketing automation (which we expect to pick up speed very fast, as more marketers demand triggered emails for things like shopping cart abandonment or new signups). As a result, they're able to offer excellent perks to employees, and options stand to be valuable in the near term. SendGrid has figured out how to make distributed teams work. We can hire in any of the four major offices, and collaborate over a distance. I'm working with about 300 friendly and helpful coworkers as of this review. Employees really do "walk the walk" of the company's values: hungry, humble, honest, and happy. It's been a pleasure working with my team, and I really appreciate the transparency shown to employees by upper management. Sameer - the current CEO - and the co-founders are all smart, warm, and personable. Senior management hires great people and trusts them to get the job done.
Cons: Salaries are finally catching up to the market, but they weren't always that way. Early employees don't seem to get many chances for advancement, and mid-level management, generally hired from outside, feels a bit green at times. It's a tricky balance; we need experienced managers, but we also need to reward the people who helped build it with opportunities for professional development. This is probably a natural problem for a mid-stage company like ours to have.

Exciting and Challenging

Software Engineer • Current Employee

February 4, 2016

Pros: Passionate, smart, and friendly people work here! There are many challenging problems to solve as a software engineer, particularly related to scale. This year is going to be crucial as we enter and expand in new markets. The 4 H's in the culture are not just lip service; they can truly be seen here everyday: Happy, Humble, Hungry, and Honest. I'm happy to see that the bar has been raised for new hires in 2016. Oh yeah, the office managers rock and keep us well fed!

Cons: Deploying code takes more time than it should, and communication could be better between teams across the company, but it's getting better. Attrition was high in 2015 as the company matured. We've accumulated tech debt from earlier days that has caused some nasty outages, but the good news is that it's a high priority and being reduced.

5.0
Exciting and Challenging
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Denver, CO
February 4, 2016
Pros: Passionate, smart, and friendly people work here! There are many challenging problems to solve as a software engineer, particularly related to scale. This year is going to be crucial as we enter and expand in new markets. The 4 H's in the culture are not just lip service; they can truly be seen here everyday: Happy, Humble, Hungry, and Honest. I'm happy to see that the bar has been raised for new hires in 2016. Oh yeah, the office managers rock and keep us well fed!
Cons: Deploying code takes more time than it should, and communication could be better between teams across the company, but it's getting better. Attrition was high in 2015 as the company matured. We've accumulated tech debt from earlier days that has caused some nasty outages, but the good news is that it's a high priority and being reduced.

Hands down the best place I've worked

Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: Hiring people with the 4H mentality makes it much easier to ensure we're all mature enough to get along even when things go badly. There are lots and lots of perks at the company.

Cons: Management layers weren't really in place very strongly when I worked there, though it was much better by the time I left. This caused a ton of changes (mostly process) while management figured out what to do, but it showed they cared about the employees to do so. But it was pretty jarring for engineers for a while. Much better now, I think.

5.0
Hands down the best place I've worked
Senior Software Engineer • Former Employee
Denver, CO
July 2, 2017
Pros: Hiring people with the 4H mentality makes it much easier to ensure we're all mature enough to get along even when things go badly. There are lots and lots of perks at the company.
Cons: Management layers weren't really in place very strongly when I worked there, though it was much better by the time I left. This caused a ton of changes (mostly process) while management figured out what to do, but it showed they cared about the employees to do so. But it was pretty jarring for engineers for a while. Much better now, I think.

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