Chronosphere Interview Questions
& Process

The recruitment team calls you for a very brief 5-minute chat, speaking really fast. They then move you to the interview loop without really getting to know you or explaining the job or company. In one interview, the interviewer was yawning and seemed uninterested. The final round involved meeting very senior leadership who asked rapid-fire questions. I noticed they were distracted, checking emails and switching computer windows, even though it was behind a glass reflection. The senior leaders seem to have come from Uber. After all these rounds, I was ghosted.

Started with a recruiter call, which was cool. They were upfront about salary, which I liked. After that, things went downhill. I had a coding screen that lasted about an hour. The interviewers gave minimal feedback while I was coding, which felt like inexperience. Live coding feels awkward, and I think interviewers should offer some encouragement or guidance. I got barely any feedback. They also told me not to write unit tests, just to test within the main function, which was a bad move. The tests were slow and poorly designed, and unit tests would have made them better. It felt unprofessional. I had a chance to ask questions, but the interviewers seemed tired and their requirements seemed messy. The whole coding screen and follow-up discussion was so bad I almost withdrew. But I got a rejection a few days later, so I didn't have to.

The hiring process was pretty bad. After getting past the hiring manager interview, I was told the next set of interviews, which included a 45 minute presentation, would be scheduled right away. I started working on the presentation, but then days went by. I figured it was because of the holidays and reached out to the recruiter again. She told me a few times, after significant delays each time, that the hiring manager was on vacation and the interview would be scheduled soon. Then she said it would be scheduled within 48 hours. What a joke. I already spent a lot of time on the presentation. Then the recruiter emailed to say they had filled the position. If they knew they had a candidate who was late in the process, they shouldn't have made other candidates spend a lot of time on presentations. Honestly, I felt disrespected as a candidate, and I'm concerned about what this implies about their company culture.

We had an initial casual remote chat. I talked with the head of engineering about the company and its work, just to see if we were a good fit. It went well, the person was nice and answered my questions. Then there was a more formal chat with the same person, or maybe another engineer. This one was more about my background and expertise. The next steps were supposed to be a technical assignment, a technical interview, and a soft skills interview or two. But they mentioned they were really looking for more senior folks with experience in large distributed systems and high loads, which I didn't have. Still, they were upfront and nice about it, making it feel like a pleasant conversation.