I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Affirm in June 2021
Interview
I applied in April and talked to hiring manager in a week and then had a SQL live coding session. After that, I got the rejection email.
One week later, the recruiter called me and said that was an error and would like to continue which was weird. Then there was a take home project and then the final onsite interview.
The onsite was split into two days and I had a call with recruiter beforehand to go thru the focus areas for each session. The first session went weird too as the interviewer asked lots of questions that were beyond the scope I was told. Some questions were lack of background and I really did not understand the relevance here. (For example, imagining the interviewer asks you how to build an optimal stock portfolio?)
I provided the feedback to the recruiter that there was some mismatches between the expectations I was given before the onsite and the actual questions. The rest of sessions went well.
One week later I got the rejection phone call from the recruiter saying they found a better one. But when I asked about any feedback or comments on my performance so that I could improve, the recruiter did not offer details, only saying they found a more experienced one. Again, the recruiter failed me as he told me after the onsite and no matter the results, they would provide me with feedback.
That's the entire experience and you could see at least 3 flaws.
It was definitely a negative experience with Affirm.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Affirm in Apr 2021
Interview
Initial phone screener with recruiter: Questions were general fit, knowledge of Affirm, knowledge of pricing and analytics.
Phone interview with the hiring manager: Again general fit questions and some particular questions about experience in analytics and SQL. General chat about the team.
Technical interview: Went through a few easy SQL exercises with a manager on HackerRank. Anybody who uses SQL every day should breeze through it.
Take home assessment: Pretty straightforward datasets requiring very basic joins and rollups. Took some time to create the presentation. I was told that the work I did for this would come up again in final round interviews but nobody brought it up at all so I'm wondering if anybody actually looked at it.
Final round interviews: 6 half hour interviews over the course of 2 days. Here's where the wheels came off. I really wasn't impressed by any of them. They all asked very similar "case" questions, none of which really had much to do with pricing or analytics. They were very broad questions about profitability but nobody seemed to have an idea of what the strategy is to become profitable (they desperately need one). Furthermore, all but one of the interviewers had been at the company one year or less. This doesn't exactly instill confidence in the company. Overall, I got the impression that nobody (including the VP of the group) knew what direction the company was heading or where it needs to go.
Overall, the only positive aspect was the recruiter's communication throughout the process although an email in addition to the voicemail rejecting me would have been nice. I would likely not have accepted any offer if I had gotten one as I'm doubtful this company will be around in a few years. BNPL is an overly crowded race to the bottom and in my opinion will crash sooner rather than later as it's just low end credit with dressed up marketing.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Tell me about a time you had to disagree with someone at work.