CircleCI Interview Questions
& Process

I had a really nice and informative chat with HR, and I was happy to move on to talk with the hiring manager. But that convo wasn't great. She started off sharing personal stuff about living near the CEO and taking the same train, plus how she wanted to get more sway with him to tell him what she thinks is wrong with the company. That wasn't really my vibe; I like respecting leaders and prefer working together on solutions instead of just pointing out problems. The interview itself was okay, but I got tripped up by one question, and her reaction seemed like she wasn't happy, even when I tried to explain more after she asked. Near the end, she dropped that she's not a fan of work-life balance. She did say you can take PTO, but she thinks work and personal life can't both be hectic at the same time, meaning one has to take the backseat. To me, that sounded like work needs to be the priority, which isn't what I'm after in a manager or company culture. So, after this chat, I figured her management style and values weren't a good match for me, and I decided I wouldn't want to work for her.

The interview process at CircleCI was disorganized, opaque, and frankly disrespectful of candidates’ time. After an initial chat with the recruiter, I was told the process would include a hiring manager round (60 mins), followed by team interviews with the data director (30 mins) and engineering director (45 mins), and then a final round with the head of product (30 mins). However, the actual process was riddled with last-minute changes and unclear communication. After the hiring manager round, I was unexpectedly told an additional round had been added with a product design manager (30 mins) in the team screening rounds—something not mentioned earlier. The new sequence was data director (30 mins), product design manager (30 mins) and engineering director (45 mins). This interviewer seemed confused about the purpose of the interview, admitted they were informed at the last minute, and even said outright that they didn’t know why they were asked to be on the panel. The conversation felt awkward, disjointed, and completely unnecessary—which left a very poor impression. After the interview with the engineering director, when I asked her about the next steps—she had no idea. She suggested I reach out to the recruiter directly, which made it clear that interviewers weren’t aligned or even informed about the hiring process. When I reached out to the recruiter he said he will let me know in a day or two. Two days later, he told me I had made it to the final round—but, of course, they decided to add yet another round. This time, it was bizarrely, another conversation with the recruiter after the 30 mins conversation with the head of product and before an offer. At this point, the process was completely incoherent. They were clearly just adding steps as they went. He said I’d receive the scheduling email for the head of product round by the end of that week. That never happened. I waited. The week ended. Nothing. Nada. I followed up at the start of the next week, and the recruiter now said they were waiting for other candidates to catch up on team interviews—yet another vague delay in a process that was already all over the place. At this point I'm still waiting for that email, okay! And then—two days later—I got a generic rejection email. No explanation, no reasoning, no acknowledgment that they’d specifically told me I was in the final round. Radio silence after that. No response when I contacted the recruiter after receiving that email. It was an absolutely chaotic experience—zero structure, zero accountability, and zero respect for the candidate’s time or effort. If this is how they run hiring, add steps as you go, keep candidates on hold because they feel like it, I can only imagine the chaos inside. If you're a candidate who values transparency, structure, and respect for your time, I would strongly recommend avoiding interviewing at CircleCI.

I went through three stages: a recruiter interview, a hiring manager interview, and a portfolio review presentation. I think there was supposed to be a final interview after that, but I left the process during the portfolio review. CircleCI had a guide for candidates, which stated they wanted 45 minutes of content from everyone. I spent a lot of time creating this presentation based on their requirements, which I don't really agree with as a practice. When I tried to join the call, the Zoom link was invalid. I told the recruiting team about the issue right away. After 15 minutes past the scheduled time, I asked to reschedule. Then, 30 minutes past the start time, I got an automated email from the recruiter saying they had filled the position and wouldn't proceed. They must have known this at least an hour before the interview and didn't tell me. Honestly, they should have told me earlier in the week so I wouldn't have wasted time on the presentation, but any heads-up and apology would have been nice. I liked talking to the team members, but this was one of the most disrespectful interview experiences I've had, and I won't consider interviewing with them again or recommend them to others.

I got a message from a recruiter and then had a phone call. After that, I interviewed with the Hiring Manager for 45 minutes. Things went well, so they gave me a take-home assignment. It was a one-week task involving troubleshooting Docker containers and testing out their platform. The Docker part was easy, but the code testing was way harder, especially if you haven't done it before. I then had a third interview (30 minutes) where I had to explain my take-home work. I'm not sure what they were looking for, but I didn't get past this stage.