Clipboard Interview Questions
& Process

My background was a great fit for the job, and writing is my best skill, so I did pretty well in the interview process. What really stood out was how overly complicated and adversarial the whole experience felt. The upfront case and lack of feedback were expected, but the real issue is the mindset behind it: they confuse rigor with friction! Hiding text to catch LLM use says a lot; it feels more like a gotcha than a genuine assessment. If LLM submissions are so obvious, they shouldn't need such tricks. Instructions like “one and only one recommended solution” and warnings that LLM-generated submissions are “very obvious” don't inspire confidence in their hiring process. It seems they don't know how to identify strong candidates without forcing them through a narrow and rigid template. The reading materials were self-important, inflexible, and condescending. The entire process felt designed to find a very specific type of person who can conform and group-think. Not exactly an entrepreneurial culture. Also, they recently hired a CFO from Oaktree, which is a restructuring private equity firm. This isn't exactly a reassuring signal regarding stability or their management style. Overall, it was good interview practice.

The technical interview process was really thorough and structured, and I liked how deep the questions went. But, I finished the process not really knowing what the actual hiring criteria or decision factors were. After finishing both the core and bonus technical parts, and getting all the answers right, way more than what was asked, and still having time left during the assessment, the final rejection was just because of 'where the company is at,' with no specific feedback. For folks who put in a lot of prep time, having more concrete feedback or clearer role calibration would make the experience better. Being upfront about changing priorities or shifting role expectations would also help manage expectations properly. All in all, the technical bar seemed high, but the clarity around decision-making and alignment could be improved. I'd say don't bother applying, they'll just waste your time.

First, I had to complete a take-home test. It was fairly straightforward: I needed to fetch data from an API and display the top 3 results that matched a specific criterion. After submitting it, I had an interview with an engineer who reviewed my code. They'd put some bugs in their provided code, and during the interview, they pointed out that the results were inaccurate due to these bugs, asking me to debug it. They also inquired about potential optimizations for my initial code submission if it wasn't already optimal. They mentioned that while AI tools were permitted for the assessment, I'd still be tested on my understanding of any AI-generated code.

They sent me a link to a Hatchways async task. I completed the assignment, following all instructions, created the PR and submitted it. After about 2 days, I got an email saying my submission had 'significant gaps'. This made me question if the reviewer actually understood the task requirements. The only feedback was 'Areas where you can improve: • Attention to detail: your solution did not adhere to the specification laid out in the task.' I emailed back asking what specific requirement I missed but didn't get a reply. This leads me to believe they might not even review the assignment, and instead rely solely on the resume, rejecting candidates based on their profile regardless of the assignment's outcome.