Kind of a mess, video calls and coding assessment all took place very quickly. They gushed over my code, asked for references, then dragged out the process for over a month because they didn't have a team manager in place, then finally told me they were going a different direction. I get that they're trying to do things the right way, but it felt disrespectful of my time.
I honestly really liked the people overall and what they're trying to do, but there were some things that made me raise my eyebrows and feel a little uncomfortable. One person lit up at being able to siphon charitable money into the company, and there was a point where I was basically asked to guarantee I wouldn't consider other companies if they made an offer, which seems a little hypocritical.
I hope I'm wrong in my impressions because if the vision is well executed I think it could be great. For what it's worth though I've heard other stories through the tech grapevine of Aunt Bertha trying to get to accept lower level positions than they interviewed even if they already had a higher level at a more prestigious company. I've also heard about a lot of getting tired of it and leaving, even going back to their previous jobs. Who knows though.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How do we know you won't take another position if we make an offer?
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Findhelp
Interview
Phone screen with product lead before a day in-house with three one-hour interviews: two with technical teams of two people each and one with the product lead. All were super friendly and welcoming.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
If you wanted to add a function that gets called on loading every page, how would you add that to the site?
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Findhelp
Interview
Phone screening with some basic questions about experience. They sold the company pretty well on the phone which made me interested in coming in for an in-person interview. The in-person interview was basically an hour of selling me the company and an hour of a 4 person panel. First I sat down and spoke with the person who I had spoken to during the phone screening, but instead of asking me questions it was more of telling me about the company. I spoke to another experienced developer after that and that was mostly telling me about the company and general conversation, with a couple questions about experience.
Then they had a panel interview with 4 people. I immediately noticed there was tension among everyone in the room. They rapid-fired questions at me which I was able to answer most of, but then they asked me a system design question that was extremely general. I've done these types of questions before so I asked a lot of questions to clarify the requirements. With that being said, they gave me absolutely no extra information or direction. So I talked through it and described a few different ways it could be implemented. I drew out one of the designs on the board and one of the people on the panel was asking me a really obvious question, then I drew a couple more lines to elaborate and he was happy with my answer.
Given how poorly executed the interview process was (lots of waiting and confusion among my interviewers) and some of their answers to questions I asked I feel pretty strong that most people who work here are inexperienced. Lots of talking up the company's purpose and very few programming related questions is a red flag.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Almost all the questions related to programming were experience related
Thank you for the feedback. You certainly caught on that we are growing rapidly, and could be a lot more crisp in our interview process. As a bootstrapped company most of our growth was organic — I’ve taken some notes and will use this feedback to add a bit more structure and rigor. -Erine
