Shield AI

C++ Engineer Interview Experience

December 7, 2023

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

TLDR: Fun technical challenges, a drawn-out process, and no intent to hire.

The interview process was:

A one-hour Hiring Manager interview.
A two-hour technical challenge.
A four-hour take-home C++ task.
A one-hour presentation of the C++ task to multiple team members.
A one-hour technical challenge.
A one-hour teamwork interview.

My final round was scheduled for Wednesday, however I noticed that they had already re-listed the position on LinkedIn before my final round. I really doubt they had any intent to hire, and I think they're interviewing to pretend they're growing. I pulled out before the onsite.

The communication was very poor, as they ghosted me before coming back from the dead and offering a further interview. I also asked for feedback after the rejection, and they ignored me. The technical challenges were very fun and difficult, so that was a positive. They also demanded an NDA, however I refused to sign it.

Questions

The task was to basically turn a string representation of a data structure into a C++ data class. It also involved Dijkstra.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Shield AI C++ Engineer role.

Success Rate

0%

Pass Rate

Shield AI's interview process for their C++ Engineer roles is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%

Neutral0%

Negative100%

Candidates reported having very negative feelings for Shield AI's C++ Engineer interview process.

Shield AI Work Experiences

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Staff Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Challenging problems everyday, but with the support of humble, smart, and overall easy going teammates that are always eager to lend a helping hand. Culture can vary from team to team, as anywhere, but overall everyone I’ve worked with has been great. Hard work is rewarded and recognized.

Cons: Not the best PTO policy and sometimes long hours are an unspoken expectation that everyone just accepts. Project management often over promises and the engineers are left to suffer as a result (is there any company where this isn’t true?). As the company continues to grow, the previous smaller company perks and individual attention are becoming increasingly less frequent.

Hard problems, humble engineers

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Challenging problems everyday, but with the support of humble, smart, and overall easy going teammates that are always eager to lend a helping hand. Culture can vary from team to team, as anywhere, but overall everyone I’ve worked with has been great. Hard work is rewarded and recognized.

Cons: Not the best PTO policy and sometimes long hours are an unspoken expectation that everyone just accepts. Project management often over promises and the engineers are left to suffer as a result (is there any company where this isn’t true?). As the company continues to grow, the previous smaller company perks and individual attention are becoming increasingly less frequent.

A bit chaotic

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Cons: No structure makes it’s hard to always be changing

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Cons: No structure makes it’s hard to always be changing

Horribly toxic environment shrouded in deceitful inappropriate treatment of employees

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Pros: The product idea is interesting, but many other defense companies are way ahead. There is nothing “special” about the product.

Cons: Before coming here I read a lot of negative reviews and decided to ignore them thinking they were most biased reviews from a small few of disgruntled employees. But now I realize that’s 99% of the employee base. Biggest mistake of my life was coming to this company. The executives use patriotism as an excuse to treat employees like poorly. The middle managers are lying out of their teeth to save their own careers, but lack the technical competence to manage. The product is is decades behind other industry leaders, even China. The organizational technical architecture is terrible, some of the worst I’ve seen in many years. The culture has some real issues; horribly toxic for a working woman. If you have kids you won’t have any time to spend 10 minutes with your kids or bring parents to hospital. You record your timed on 15 minute increments, and the executives have asked teams doing 80 hour a week should be upped to 100 hours a week on average. And please note - any feedback you provide will be held against you on future reviews, even if they “say” it’s anonymous. They are actively using polls to try and weed out all the people who are posting negative reviews on indeed and blind, don’t be fooled. HR is also extremely unhelpful for almost any issue I have brought up to them.

Horribly toxic environment shrouded in deceitful inappropriate treatment of employees

Engineer • Current Employee

September 3, 2023

Pros: The product idea is interesting, but many other defense companies are way ahead. There is nothing “special” about the product.

Cons: Before coming here I read a lot of negative reviews and decided to ignore them thinking they were most biased reviews from a small few of disgruntled employees. But now I realize that’s 99% of the employee base. Biggest mistake of my life was coming to this company. The executives use patriotism as an excuse to treat employees like poorly. The middle managers are lying out of their teeth to save their own careers, but lack the technical competence to manage. The product is is decades behind other industry leaders, even China. The organizational technical architecture is terrible, some of the worst I’ve seen in many years. The culture has some real issues; horribly toxic for a working woman. If you have kids you won’t have any time to spend 10 minutes with your kids or bring parents to hospital. You record your timed on 15 minute increments, and the executives have asked teams doing 80 hour a week should be upped to 100 hours a week on average. And please note - any feedback you provide will be held against you on future reviews, even if they “say” it’s anonymous. They are actively using polls to try and weed out all the people who are posting negative reviews on indeed and blind, don’t be fooled. HR is also extremely unhelpful for almost any issue I have brought up to them.

Hard problems, humble engineers

Staff Engineer • Current Employee

Pros: Challenging problems everyday, but with the support of humble, smart, and overall easy going teammates that are always eager to lend a helping hand. Culture can vary from team to team, as anywhere, but overall everyone I’ve worked with has been great. Hard work is rewarded and recognized.

Cons: Not the best PTO policy and sometimes long hours are an unspoken expectation that everyone just accepts. Project management often over promises and the engineers are left to suffer as a result (is there any company where this isn’t true?). As the company continues to grow, the previous smaller company perks and individual attention are becoming increasingly less frequent.

5.0
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Staff Engineer • Current Employee
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Pros: Challenging problems everyday, but with the support of humble, smart, and overall easy going teammates that are always eager to lend a helping hand. Culture can vary from team to team, as anywhere, but overall everyone I’ve worked with has been great. Hard work is rewarded and recognized.
Cons: Not the best PTO policy and sometimes long hours are an unspoken expectation that everyone just accepts. Project management often over promises and the engineers are left to suffer as a result (is there any company where this isn’t true?). As the company continues to grow, the previous smaller company perks and individual attention are becoming increasingly less frequent.

A bit chaotic

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December 26, 2025

Pros: There are lots of exciting things to work on.

Cons: No structure makes it’s hard to always be changing

4.0
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December 26, 2025
Pros: There are lots of exciting things to work on.
Cons: No structure makes it’s hard to always be changing

Horribly toxic environment shrouded in deceitful inappropriate treatment of employees

Engineer • Current Employee

September 3, 2023

Pros: The product idea is interesting, but many other defense companies are way ahead. There is nothing “special” about the product.

Cons: Before coming here I read a lot of negative reviews and decided to ignore them thinking they were most biased reviews from a small few of disgruntled employees. But now I realize that’s 99% of the employee base. Biggest mistake of my life was coming to this company. The executives use patriotism as an excuse to treat employees like poorly. The middle managers are lying out of their teeth to save their own careers, but lack the technical competence to manage. The product is is decades behind other industry leaders, even China. The organizational technical architecture is terrible, some of the worst I’ve seen in many years. The culture has some real issues; horribly toxic for a working woman. If you have kids you won’t have any time to spend 10 minutes with your kids or bring parents to hospital. You record your timed on 15 minute increments, and the executives have asked teams doing 80 hour a week should be upped to 100 hours a week on average. And please note - any feedback you provide will be held against you on future reviews, even if they “say” it’s anonymous. They are actively using polls to try and weed out all the people who are posting negative reviews on indeed and blind, don’t be fooled. HR is also extremely unhelpful for almost any issue I have brought up to them.

2.0
Horribly toxic environment shrouded in deceitful inappropriate treatment of employees
Engineer • Current Employee
San Diego, CA
September 3, 2023
Pros: The product idea is interesting, but many other defense companies are way ahead. There is nothing “special” about the product.
Cons: Before coming here I read a lot of negative reviews and decided to ignore them thinking they were most biased reviews from a small few of disgruntled employees. But now I realize that’s 99% of the employee base. Biggest mistake of my life was coming to this company. The executives use patriotism as an excuse to treat employees like poorly. The middle managers are lying out of their teeth to save their own careers, but lack the technical competence to manage. The product is is decades behind other industry leaders, even China. The organizational technical architecture is terrible, some of the worst I’ve seen in many years. The culture has some real issues; horribly toxic for a working woman. If you have kids you won’t have any time to spend 10 minutes with your kids or bring parents to hospital. You record your timed on 15 minute increments, and the executives have asked teams doing 80 hour a week should be upped to 100 hours a week on average. And please note - any feedback you provide will be held against you on future reviews, even if they “say” it’s anonymous. They are actively using polls to try and weed out all the people who are posting negative reviews on indeed and blind, don’t be fooled. HR is also extremely unhelpful for almost any issue I have brought up to them.

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