This is for a job posting that is no longer active and happened over a year ago. The recruiter was over 5 minutes late to our phone screen and seemed frazzled. Samsara pays way below market for their manager and senior manager positions - it's laughable and almost offensive. Meanwhile, the expectations are worth a lot more than what they pay for. I pulled myself out of the process after the phone screen.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Samsara in July 2023
Interview
I was referred to the role by a former coworker; the recruiter screened my application and then set up a quick call with the hiring manager. After agreeing to a basic 2-way fit, the hiring manager sent me a 48 hour assignment to do analysis on some test-data, then develop a short presentation on my findings. From there I had an opportunity to meet with a fellow member of the team, a manager of another team, and the two leaders above the hiring manager in the org chart. After those 4 interviews, I had another quick chat with the hiring manager before submitting references to the recruiter. End to end the process was fairly quick, under 6 weeks from the time I began my research until receiving a written offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
All of the interview questions were directly aligned to the company values and related to specific topics such as technical execution, business acumen, interpersonal collaboration, etc.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Samsara in Mar 2023
Interview
Initial phone screen with a recruiter -> phone interview with hiring manager -> 4-person interview panel over zoom (back-to-back, not all 4 at once) -> homework assignment -> present work to hiring manager -> interview with skip-level manager The interview process was (unnecessarily) long and leaned heavily into behavioral questions. This made it hard to connect with anyone during the process on a more human level and gauge how they communicate and think on a personal level. None of the questions were hard, but they did become redundant. While the interview process was longer than I'd normally put up with, the most frustrating part was how they delivered their decision not to move forward. After completing 6+ stages and receiving positive feedback along the way, I was rejected via a form email at 10:50PM on a Sunday. The email included no personalized feedback as to why they decided not to extend an offer. It was the most disrespectful rejection I've ever received. After that much time and effort, I would have expected a phone call from the recruiter with detailed feedback and commentary. Because of how they handled the rejection, I would not consider applying to work there in the future. Shows me how they treat their employees.