CircleCI Solutions Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

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.

I applied online and heard back from a recruiter pretty quickly, within a couple days. The first chat was with the recruiter, just talking about why I'm looking for a new job, my background, and what I'm doing now. Then I had a call with the Solutions Engineering manager, where they asked me technical concept questions about things like DevOps, Agile, and managing clients. After that, I spoke with another Solutions Engineer who also asked more technical concept questions. The next part was a take-home technical task that they gave me a week to finish. Then there were two more video calls, one with Account Executives and another with more Solutions Engineers. One of the last steps was a presentation where I had to pitch a technology of my choice to the team, with slides. It was a pretty long process, but they were efficient and it all took me about 3 weeks. What was great is that the interviews and questions felt really relevant to the Solutions Engineer role, which was nice.

So I had an offer get pulled after going through all the interview steps at CircleCI. It started with a 30-minute HR phone screen where we talked about presentation experience and technical skills. Then, I had a 30-minute interview with the SE director about DevOps and general tech opinions. Next was a take-home technical communication exercise involving Docker debugging and building/deploying a web app using a CircleCI pipeline. This was followed by a live review of that exercise with a Senior SE. The final step was a 5-10 minute presentation to a panel of SEs and Account Executives, pitching a technology of my choice. Steps 3 and 4 were spread out over a week, as was each step overall, making the whole process about a month long. HR was really communicative throughout, which was nice but also a bit weird given the offer situation later. After the final interview, they said an offer was ready but wanted a 'pre-verbal offer discussion' about compensation. I was fine with the target OTE but didn't want to commit without more details on the full package. HR seemed unhappy when I asked about benefits, stock options, and for just one more week to finalize another offer. Turns out they have a 3-day offer response policy, but couldn't give me a clear verbal offer or answer my questions. Despite multiple calls that week to clarify and negotiate, they pulled the offer the next week via a generic email saying they 'can’t meet my needs.' When I asked the hiring SE team, they confirmed and denied a call. I never asked for anything outside their means, just a slight base increase, a signing bonus for opportunity cost, and combining stipends, but dropped them when told there was no flexibility. It felt like I was punished for finishing another interview process and asking for more info, despite taking them seriously and them being a top choice. They might have seen my questions as disinterest, but I was just trying to be level-headed without a complete offer.