SendGrid

Senior Front End Developer Interview Experience - Denver, Colorado

April 1, 2019

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

After a short exchange with the recruiter, and no exchange with an actual hiring manager or anyone on the team for an initial screen for fit, I was sent a timed online coding test. This test only covered data structures and algorithms, with no coding exercises related to front-end development. I was also not given instructions that the test would focus on non-front-end skills, leaving me no opportunity to prepare.

About a week later, the recruiter emailed back stating they did not want to move forward with me. However, they suggested that if I wanted to "review CS fundamentals," I could re-apply in the future. I still can't believe they feel entitled to ask senior developers to sacrifice their free time learning and being tested on skills that aren't part of the job they are applying for.

Questions

Taking an array of strings, return an array with the first instance of any string whose anagram is later in the array. This preserves order, removes the later anagram instances, and removes any strings without anagrams.

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Interview Statistics

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

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

SendGrid's interview process for their Senior Front End Developer 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 Senior Front End Developer interview process in Denver, Colorado.

SendGrid Work Experiences

Software Engineer

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: Great coworkers, perks, environment, and challenges

Cons: Some technical and organizational challenges due to the company's rapid growth

Software Engineer

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: Great coworkers, perks, environment, and challenges

Cons: Some technical and organizational challenges due to the company's rapid growth

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.

Review title

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Good benefits, and management seems to care about making it a good place to work. Coworkers are mostly people who are smart and fun to work with.

Cons: Goal setting exercises feel pointless. Goals often just map to the product road map, and achieving them depends on whether or not the work is prioritized by product management. Any conversation around these goals is rarely stimulating or useful from a career development perspective. I haven't found the HR processes useful at all when it comes to having performance conversations or understanding my performance reviews. Performance assessment seems mostly subjective. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if it's all subjective in the end anyway, we shouldn't have to spend so much time and effort on pointless reviews and goals. The company has had high attrition rates in the past, so many people have only been with the company a short time.

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Good benefits, and management seems to care about making it a good place to work. Coworkers are mostly people who are smart and fun to work with.

Cons: Goal setting exercises feel pointless. Goals often just map to the product road map, and achieving them depends on whether or not the work is prioritized by product management. Any conversation around these goals is rarely stimulating or useful from a career development perspective. I haven't found the HR processes useful at all when it comes to having performance conversations or understanding my performance reviews. Performance assessment seems mostly subjective. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if it's all subjective in the end anyway, we shouldn't have to spend so much time and effort on pointless reviews and goals. The company has had high attrition rates in the past, so many people have only been with the company a short time.

Software Engineer

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Pros: Great coworkers, perks, environment, and challenges

Cons: Some technical and organizational challenges due to the company's rapid growth

5.0
Software Engineer
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Denver, CO
April 17, 2018
Pros: Great coworkers, perks, environment, and challenges
Cons: Some technical and organizational challenges due to the company's rapid growth

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.

Review title

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Good benefits, and management seems to care about making it a good place to work. Coworkers are mostly people who are smart and fun to work with.

Cons: Goal setting exercises feel pointless. Goals often just map to the product road map, and achieving them depends on whether or not the work is prioritized by product management. Any conversation around these goals is rarely stimulating or useful from a career development perspective. I haven't found the HR processes useful at all when it comes to having performance conversations or understanding my performance reviews. Performance assessment seems mostly subjective. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if it's all subjective in the end anyway, we shouldn't have to spend so much time and effort on pointless reviews and goals. The company has had high attrition rates in the past, so many people have only been with the company a short time.

4.0
Review title
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Denver, CO
April 17, 2017
Pros: Good benefits, and management seems to care about making it a good place to work. Coworkers are mostly people who are smart and fun to work with.
Cons: Goal setting exercises feel pointless. Goals often just map to the product road map, and achieving them depends on whether or not the work is prioritized by product management. Any conversation around these goals is rarely stimulating or useful from a career development perspective. I haven't found the HR processes useful at all when it comes to having performance conversations or understanding my performance reviews. Performance assessment seems mostly subjective. That's not necessarily a bad thing, but if it's all subjective in the end anyway, we shouldn't have to spend so much time and effort on pointless reviews and goals. The company has had high attrition rates in the past, so many people have only been with the company a short time.

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