I applied online. I interviewed at Zalando (Berlin) in Mar 2021
Interview
The interview process was conducted from Berlin and lasted for more than two months.
While the interviewers were professional, my experience in general was terrible.
The job description mentioned that the position required strong skills in area X. As an expert in X I applied for the job.
However, I eventually learnt that team was very small (hiring manager + another person) and their focus recently shifted to Y and the interviews also focused on judging my knowledge in topic Y.
I got rejected and their feedback was "I don't know topic Y". Sure, but I didn't claim in my cv that I know that topic :) If their priorities had changed then why shortlist my profile and waste my time? The job description was clearly misleading.
Interviews
1) Resume walk-through with a team member.
2) Behavioural questions with HR.
3) Hiring manager round.
4) Bar raiser round (behavioural questions + problem solving in business scenarios).
5) Coding task + s/w engineering principles.
6) In depth technical interview on skill-sets relevant to the profile.
The HR told me that I didn't do well in the in-depth interview. Well, the interview wasn't conducted, it was cancelled :) They based their decision only on 5 rounds. It seems the hiring manager didn't know what he was doing. This was a huge waste of time. But now at least I know that Zalando weren't working in topic X and didn't have much to offer me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1) Scenarios: How do you use your knowledge of AI/ML to help Zalando solve problem Z?
2) Greatest achievement? Biggest failure? How do you manage conflict?
3) Leetcode medium tasks.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Zalando (Berlin) in Apr 2025
Interview
I applied via Zalando's webpage. After a couple of days I got an invitation for the first screen. The whole process was:
1: First screen with recruiter
2: (offline) Assessment
3: final tech interview
The final round was really tiresome since it was sub-divided into three interviews: ML interview, online coding (LeetCode), and the last one focused on system design.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Zalando
Interview
Initial HR interview, interview with the manager, then a round of four interviews. It took arlund two months with some pauses in between. They promise feedback at the end, but after two months I still didn't receive it.
I applied online. I interviewed at Zalando in Sept 2024
Interview
I had a first interview with a recruiter. It was a short chat about my motivation and skills. Following this, there was an interview with the hiring manager. We talked about the role and some prospective projects. I actually had a very good feeling, but I have never heard back from Zalando after that. My emails to the recruiter remained unanswered (several months now). From this experience, the hiring process at Zalando does not seem to be very transparent and respectful.
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review. We appreciate you bringing this issue to our attention and sharing your honest feedback on your candidate experience. Please be assured that this is not the standard we would like to see at Zalando! We will share your insights with the responsible Talent Acquisition teams and will review our processes internally to improve.
- Talent Acquisition Team