Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California
Process
This interview was for a Senior SDE position on the Data Infrastructure team. The interview process was very straightforward: an online test, followed by an interview with a senior member from the team, and potentially a virtual onsite afterward.
The interview with the senior member focused heavily on previous work experience, rather than being overly technical. The interviewer was based in Copenhagen, and I felt we had a good discussion, as it wasn't too technical. I answered all the questions, except for experience with a few tools that I believed were not deal-breakers according to the job description.
Two days later, I received an automated thank-you email stating they were moving forward with another candidate. It felt like a waste of time, and technically, I don't understand how someone can assess technical skills without discussing a technical problem. I believe they had already decided whom to offer the position to and were simply waiting for the other candidate to accept.
I had to email the recruiter for confirmation, as the automated email was generic, and I had applied for other positions as well. The recruiter, who was very responsive during the initial stages of the interview process and after I cleared the online test, stopped responding immediately after my interview with the senior team member.
I understand that it was a "no go" for that particular role, and I also understand they cannot provide feedback to everyone. However, at least for a candidate who invested so much time in the process, they should, as a courtesy, clarify that the email pertained to the same position.
Overall, very unprofessional!
If you have an interview with this company, please ensure you have experience with all the tools mentioned in the job description. Otherwise, you are just wasting your time interviewing, as they likely have already decided whom to offer the position to.
One request I have for the management: please show some courtesy to interview candidates, especially during this difficult time with the COVID situation and job losses. These candidates dedicate their time and effort to the process; at least have the courtesy to respond to them.
Positive or negative feedback is secondary, but providing some feedback, if possible, would be appreciated.
I would never apply to this company again. Please do not waste your time doing so!!!
Good luck.
Questions
The online test was tough, but I managed to get the output. Going through medium-level LeetCode problems will definitely help in doing well in the online test.
My interview with a senior team member was very technically oriented, focusing on work experience with no live coding. The questions were based on my previous work experience.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 5 interview experiences for the Unity Senior Software Engineer role in San Francisco, California.
Success Rate
Unity's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in San Francisco, California is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Candidates reported having good feelings for Unity's Senior Software Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.
Unity Work Experiences
- 4.0Optimistic with a long road aheadSenior Software Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesMay 31, 2024Pros: Passionate, intelligent people. Good benefits. Interesting work. Can have a big impact if you want to.Cons: Morale is low, understandably, due to many rounds of layoffs, poor leadership, poor internal communication, and a lack of transparency that was common under the previous leadership. The stock price is down and still going down.
- 4.0Good to start your careerSenior Software Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesFebruary 27, 2024Pros: - Smaller organizations make it easier to be on high-impact projects and have access to leadership. - Great work-life balance.Cons: - Not a very social culture
- 1.0Going public sent the company down a different pathSenior Software Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesJune 12, 2023Pros: Some of the employees and engineers are amazing. Some of the incredible talent that made Unity what it is are still there.Cons: As a long, long-time Unity user, nearly since version 1 of Unity, I was super excited to work at Unity. Unity always stood out as a company for the indie devs, your ally, your partner, to help you get past all the barriers in the industry that small players face. But I think ever since it went public, it has gradually eroded into a pure profit-growth-driven business. Leadership cares about nothing more than what will get the stock to go up in the short term. They've hired so many people from other Big Tech corporations, trying to essentially colonize original Unity culture with Big Tech corporate process and culture, and they are winning. Many Unity originals, engineers that have been there since the beginning, have left. They pushed out Joachim, the original CTO, the last Unity original and real engineer on the C-Suite, so literally Unity leadership has been entirely usurped by non-engineer business types. The only places still managing to do anything good are those places with very high-level engineers that still have substantial political weight to throw around and happen to be in a stream that can be argued to make the stock price go up in the short term. But increasingly, they must fight against a pure business side that greatly outnumbers them, with free time to play the bureaucracy game. If the narrative about their effort affecting stock price changes, they will be rug-pulled fast. Being an engineer that can do anything of value is like sitting in the middle of a circus. They are cycling through managers and product people, just trying to find any way to milk any more cash from anything in the short term. They have even, in the past year, started to cannibalize some of their own customers. Unity isn't even a good company to partner with anymore; the relationship will be predatory and extorting, tuned for short-term stock inflation however possible. It's a sad thing, but I think it's just the fate of any successful tech company. The engineers build something of value. Gradually, the company hires more and more business people until they overtake the company, then a company once driven by engineers and engineering innovation is now driven by Excel spreadsheets, trying to get the stock price to go up however it possibly can to let the current round of business people get a decent cash out on their stock options before jumping companies again every 3-ish years or so. Even worse, in recent months, in response to sweeping corporate policy changes, they've actually taken to firing people on the spot who disagree with leadership. A few of these got out in the news, but there have been dozens of them. They were not all justified. Internal Slack and communication has become much more shut down compared to what used to be a very open and communicative company. Increasingly, it is only "Yes Men" saying anything out in the open. The business crowd that's usurped all controls of the company are playing a hardball game of thrones with power. A bunch of engineering-illiterate suits, super, super paranoid that people will figure out what they are and call them out on it, are now sitting at the top, terrified, trying to milk whatever nonsense they can for another stock payout or bit of nonsensical media attention.
Unity Interview Questions
