I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Zalando (Berlin) in Nov 2021
Interview
After solving the codility test, had a "general tech" interview for the backend/data engineer role.
The hiring manager just heard a few minutes of what I did in my current role and we didn't go through any of my other experiences and projects. After that I was just bombarded with specific hard technical questions on data engineering tools at a rate of 1 per minute until the end. The engineer had no interest in my learning capabilities, social skills, leadership, team fit, or any relevant experience. I can verify that it definitely wasn't a "General Tech" interview let alone a technical interview.
Towards the end it was evident that the recruiter wasn't attentive when I got to ask questions about the product and team overall. He misunderstood all my questions and gave short irrelevant answers.
Zalando has a real problem standardizing the recruitment process. I have many friends who work at Zalando who had a proper "General Tech" interview where the process followed a 45-60 min back and forth productive talk on experiences, skills and some technical abilities. Knowing this I feel like hiring managers are not trained properly trained to follow Zalando guidelines when conducting these interviews.
Thank you for leaving us a review and for bringing this to our attention.
What you describe goes against our values and high standards at Zalando. We fully commit to providing a positive experience to our candidates by ensuring a smooth process, respectful behavior, transparency, and valuable feedback.
We have since shared your feedback within our Talent Acquisition Team and hiring managers who are investigating in order to drive improvement where needed.
We wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
- Talent Acquisition Team