CharterUP Interview Questions
& Process

The whole thing took about 5 weeks, with several rounds. It was cool talking with the team, and the questions were pretty standard for a senior role, they made it fun. I did a live coding thing in 10 seconds, which impressed the interviewer. The final architecture discussion went well too, gave me a feel for their tech vision. Didn't get an offer though. Not sure why, maybe it was compensation because the budget changed and ended up being lower than expected for senior. Still, I liked the team and company and would consider them again.

This whole thing was a scam, they just ghosted me after I followed up three times. The usual story: they're nice until you do work for them, then poof, they disappear because they have other people doing the same thing. This isn't about culture, it's about honesty. They reached out on LinkedIn about a remote Senior Product Designer role with an immediate start. Had a quick 15-min call with the CEO, supposedly to discuss the role, salary, and expectations. The CEO is listed as the founder of Busify, which seems to have been bought by CharterUp. I mentioned a compensation figure that was actually on the lower end of market averages, but the CEO thought it was 'high' and justified it by me being in Rio, which makes no sense – pay is about the company's ability and market rates, not location. Then they changed the order and asked me to do a 3-hour test on a screen they'd already redesigned, instead of a technical interview first. I mentioned I usually charge for design tests because so many companies exploit designers with 'challenges' without intending to hire. But I decided to trust them this time, and they disappeared.

After I applied, I had to take a Wonderlic test and then they asked me for an interview. The interview was pretty in-depth, asking a lot of questions about my experience, the company culture, why I wanted to work at CharterUp, and some questions about the job itself. The interviewer was really nice and answered all my questions thoroughly. They followed up quickly and told me the next step would be a quantitative interview focusing on basic math skills. If I passed that, I would have then spoken with higher-ups. I did end up withdrawing my application, but it was a good experience overall.

You start with a coding challenge where you have to build a front end quote estimator and another quick coding task in any language. After that, the rest of the interviews felt like interrogations. The first time I spoke to people was a 30-minute chat with the CTO, hiring manager, and CFO, mostly about soft skills and gauging my interest. They really stressed that it's a hard-working environment, expecting about 55 hours a week. Then came what seemed like the final interview, which was a really bad experience. Five guys grilled me about my personal projects, barely letting me talk about what I know. After that, they just ghosted me without any rejection, update, or acceptance email, which was super unprofessional.