Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California
Process
Quick phone chat with the internal recruiter to introduce me to their interview process and the company culture.
Then another Skype call with the Hiring Manager that was 50% discussion and 50% code challenge on Coderpad.
After that, I was flown out to SF for a full day's interview with the team.
I think there were six interviews all up with my potential peers. There was:
- One pairing session to fix a bug in a Ruby library.
- Two interviews that were whiteboard exercises.
- The rest were discussions about the role and my experience.
I was not offered the role, as they wanted someone with more people management experience and offered to introduce me to other teams that were looking for engineers. I was lucky enough to be offered something in another company, so I didn't pursue anything further with Zendesk.
Questions
Fix a bug in a Ruby library, some algorithm questions, and high-level system architecture problem-solving.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 13 interview experiences for the Zendesk Software Engineer role in San Francisco, California.
Success Rate
Zendesk's interview process for their 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 very good feelings for Zendesk's Software Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.
Zendesk Work Experiences
- 2.0Bully managers and bad HR mar what's otherwise a good environmentSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesAugust 26, 2018Pros: Catered lunch once a week. Parties. Nice office.Cons: Location: Hope you like walking past poop and needles every morning! HR protects the company: Bring up issues about your manager and they'll either forward them to the manager themselves or ignore them. Usually, they did the former. Managers have total power: If your manager doesn't like you, you're not going to last at the company. They have total discretion to determine who gets to do what, and will assign you no work, then criticize you for doing no work. Finally, while the non-engineering onboarding was comprehensive, the engineering onboarding was virtually nonexistent.
- 1.0Politics Over Performance, Recruiter LiesSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesOctober 30, 2014Pros: Absolutely nothing. If you know the right people, you can cruise your way through without doing anything.Cons: Office politics. The recruiter will lie to get you hired, but you are on your own after that. They won't honor promises. HR is really, really bad. It really is all about who you know; it feels like a fraternity. Very PR-focused.
- 5.0Love this placeSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesFebruary 4, 2013Pros: Great people and managers. The employees really seem to love the company and the product, and believe in its focus. The customers love the product too. Just search for Zendesk on Twitter and see what I mean. How many companies get constant props for their customer service? If you know of any other than Zendesk, then they're probably a customer of Zendesk.Cons: The codebase, both for infrastructure and product, can use quite a bit of work. But it's a result of having to scale so quickly, and it seems to be their main focus now.
Zendesk Interview Questions
