Bitly Interview Questions
& Process

My interview experience with Bitly was really bad. It started with a 1-hour call with a manager, then another 1-hour call with the hiring manager. After that, I had to do a take-home task that took about 8 hours to finish, building a microservice for Stripe payments. I thought this task was way too long and not suitable for an early stage. Then, I had a call with two developers. They asked some shallow questions and didn't seem very professional, almost like they didn't know the subject well. A week later, I got a short rejection email saying I didn't pass the technical assessment. They ignored my request for more feedback. It was a big waste of time. They expect a lot, give a poorly designed test, and offer no useful feedback. I wouldn't suggest interviewing here.

Over the course of 6 interviews I was given very positive feedback and my background fully aligned to the role. Unfortunately, I was having to chase down my recruiter after each step, including following up 3 times after sending times over for my initial phone screen and it took her 2 weeks to schedule that. I was essentially ghosted after all of these interviews when I reached out asking for feedback. I found this experience to be unprofessional and a waste of my time.

The whole thing took about a month from applying to getting the offer. It started with me talking to the VP of Engineering at a networking event and then a few months later they reached out about internships. I applied right away and got a call from the recruiter about a week later. Then, about another week after that, I had a video call with the hiring manager. Later that week, they sent me a take-home assessment which I had 72 hours plus the weekend to complete. I submitted it on a Monday, and a few days later they said I passed and set up a 45-minute live coding challenge with an engineer for the next week. The day after that, I had a 45-minute values chat with two other engineers, and finally, a 30-minute wrap-up with the hiring manager. So, there were 5 interviews in total over about 4 weeks. The take-home was tough but doable, and the live coding challenge was basically adding to my take-home project, which I could prepare for. The whole process felt organized and pleasant, with everyone being really nice, especially the engineers who were pretty chill. The hardest part was the take-home and getting over the nerves for the follow-up discussion. Even though some people get ghosted, it's worth noting I was one of over 1500 applicants, so they're just swamped right now, not undervaluing you. My advice is to always communicate, ask questions, take notes, send thank-you messages, be empathetic, and show your excitement for the role.

Got referred by an employee and then got contacted by someone with a Bitly email who didn't seem to work there. Scheduled a phone interview, but she rescheduled it. Then, during the actual phone interview, her kid interrupted like 4 times, and she didn't even apologize. She was also super informal, which was awkward. She scheduled a video call but never turned on her camera. She said she'd get back to me with interview times with the hiring executive the following week, but never did. Instead, I got a weird 'it's not you, it's us' rejection email. It was a huge waste of my time and disrespectful, and it makes me wonder about Bitly's workplace culture if this is how they hire a VP of DEI.