I applied to Verkada online and received an email from the recruiter for a non-technical phone screen. The recruiter did a product demo but asked very few questions about me and could answer very little about what the team did. This was red flag #1. Nonetheless, I was convinced by the product, so I decided to move forward.

I then did a phone screen which involved a LeetCode Hard problem. The phone interviewer seemed uninterested in interviewing me, which was another red flag. I assumed I had not made it further due to his impatience, but I heard back that day that I'd been invited to the onsite.

The onsite consisted of an algorithm portion, a systems design portion, a peer programming portion, lunch, and then a manager behavioral interview. The coding portion was another fairly niche LeetCode Hard problem and had only one correct solution, which I feel isn't the best type of question when assessing algorithm skill.

Overall, the people seemed very smart. The manager behavioral interview was mostly about which team you would fit into. The manager did not have a good understanding of my interests and offered me a team I had no interest in. This seems like a symptom of trying to grow too fast.

2 Leetcode Hard Problems