commercetools Site Reliability Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I applied through LinkedIn and had an initial call with a non-technical recruiter, who seemed to be an external contractor. She mentioned she wouldn't invest much energy, stating it was a 10-minute interview within a 30-minute slot, indicating a lack of genuine interest. She skipped company details and went straight to asking about my used tools and technologies. I was taken aback by this approach and listed my daily tools. She then asked if I had any other questions, which I couldn't possibly have given the abrupt nature of the 'interview'. A few hours later, I got a standard rejection email saying they were seeking stronger candidates, despite my 100% fit for the role. This experience made me question the overall communication standards within the company. Additionally, she asked about my current salary instead of salary expectations, which is illegal in Germany. I'm left wondering what other regulations this company might disregard.

I applied online and got contacted by the team after 2 days. They had me do some online tests. Then I got invited for an interview a month later with the Head of Engineering, followed by a second interview with an SRE, and a final session meeting the team. It's worth noting that I got to pick the interview dates and kind of controlled how long the whole process took. They sent the offer letter 4 days after my last chat with the team. I started the job 2 months later, and they were nice enough to let me pick my start date from three options.

The interview involves discussing your background and answering interviewer questions. The questions are trivia-like or test your ability to recall documentation. They don't focus on conceptual understanding, open-ended scenarios, or situational problems. Instead, they emphasize implementation details like "List all of X," "What happens with Y?" "How would you specifically use Z feature?" The goal is to find candidates who are familiar with their day-to-day operations and have encountered similar problems.