I applied through other source. I interviewed at Fathom (Toronto, ON) in Feb 2021
Interview
I have been in contact with this company since 2019. The first time round, I didn't clear the initial code screen. The second time, I was a couple months into my new job when the CEO contacted me. I politely declined as I wanted to give my last employer at least a year before considering other opportunities. The last and final time was in February 2021 when I was again contacted by the CEO after which I scheduled an initial chat with a recruiter.
The recruiter's overall attitude was presumptuous and infuriating and she seemed determined to rush through details when explaining the role and asking me clarifying questions. The icing on the cake was when I was asked for my salary expectations with the recruiter claiming "We don't pay like Google or anything" while telling me they expect 50 hours of work a week. Given the rushed manner in the which the recruiter went over everything, I did not want to shoot myself in the foot and provide a number without knowing the full context of what the job expectations would look like -- especially as this company expects 10 additional hours of my personal life to be put at their disposal. The recruiter asked me to do my "due diligence" and research and then reached out to me 5 mins later via email asking for a number. I asked the recruiter if there was a ballpark range they'd be willing to share with me and, in response, I was promptly ghosted. It seemed to me they did not even have the decency to be a transparent with their salary ranges despite expecting their employees to slog for them.
Talking with this company was an absolute complete waste of my time and energy. They are clearly one of those startups that lack any transparency and expect you to give them your blood, sweat, and tears for lowball pay. Please don't shoot yourself in the foot -- demand what you are worth if you decide to proceed with them. Being a startup does not give them the right to demand additional hours of your valuable time for less pay.
Also from the very rushed conversation I got the impression that this role would be like other so-called ML roles at other startups where you might have the title but work on anything but actual ML.
The interview process was: - Phone screen - Coding interview - Two days of a virtual on-site: - First day was 3 coding interviews - Next day was a "tech talk" and chat with the founders
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Mostly leet code-esque questions. Things like coding merge sort iteratively instead of recursively. Etc.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Fathom (Toronto, ON) in Sept 2020
Interview
although the job description was for ML, I went through three rounds of pure coding leet code style questions. based on my interview experience and conversations I had with people, if one wants to grow their ML skills and make a resume in ML, this is not the place. you would wind up doing a lot of debugging and software development stuff. you may get the chance to train a model now and then, but don't count on it.
in general I enjoyed the questions, but I was disappointed of the interview process and how people behaved. I mean no one even took a minute to introduce themselves to me or ask me who I am and what I do. I felt a lot of pressure doing the live coding. Also, the work life balance sucks at this company and I could even feel it based on their interview process!
