Coveo Solutions Interview Questions
& Process

It was a pretty disarming process: first, an HR chat, then an interview with two directors (engineering and product). After that, I got a take-home assignment: answer four strategic questions, explaining my approach and thinking, all within 10 slides using their PowerPoint template. I presented this work to the Executive VP of Product and two other directors (AI and Product). Then, an interview with the UX design team, and finally, an interview with the CTO (who has since become CEO). This final interview, which HR had called a mere formality (given I'd passed all prior stages), turned out to be super awkward. He greeted me coldly, asking if I knew who he was (!), then displayed my LinkedIn profile on a giant screen in the all-glass meeting room where anyone passing by could see it. He asked me to detail every single one of my experiences, which, given I've been working for over thirty years, was quite lengthy. After this dissection of my career, he pulled up the PowerPoint presentation I'd given to his VP a week earlier. He then gave a long speech about how, more than the content, his expectation for a Director of Product Design (and he stressed 'Product') was that their PowerPoint presentations be 'exemplary, from a formal perspective.' He stressed 'form' – not the value of my strategic or operational thinking, nor my innovation strategy or leadership, all of which were detailed in the presentation, but which he hadn't even bothered to read! My PowerPoint had a numbered list and a bulleted list, and apparently, that was a deal-breaker for him.

For the senior ML developer role, the interviews are mostly about technical and behavioural questions focusing on your past work experience and machine learning systems. You'll get a small coding project (takes about 1-2 hours) that you have a few days to finish and send back. After that, there's a feedback session where they'll ask you questions about your submission.

Scheduling was smooth with branded emails to book through a portal, plus a reminder. The initial call was brief, about 45 minutes, covering company and team details. The recruiter seemed unenthusiastic, just reciting info without passion. This made it hard to engage them. Standard questions like 'tell me about yourself' and career challenges were asked. The recruiter gave minimal feedback, just 'Got it.' to my detailed answers. The end of the call outlined the rest of the process. I wasn't offered a role and was ghosted, which I don't see as a loss given their apparent lack of enthusiasm for tech and AI from the start.

I went through 4 interview rounds with different people each time. The whole process was pretty slow, with a week gap between each interview. They kept asking the same questions in every round, which made it seem like they weren't sharing information between interviewers. The third round was a technical one where they gave me a code sample and expected me to spend 4 hours looking at it. If you know coding standards and best practices, you can find a lot of ways to improve it. Honestly, almost every line needed work. Then there was a 1.5 hour session to discuss what I found and see if I could fix bugs. So, it was actually a 5.5 hour technical test, which felt way too long! They had me change the code using different Git branches to see if I could fix the bugs they put in. My advice: check out the branches before the live interview to see what they changed, as multiple files can be modified. After a month in the process, they finally offered me a contract. I asked if they could increase the salary a bit and pointed out a typo in the contract. They admitted they sent the wrong version and would send an updated one, and they'd check internally about the salary. About 4 hours later, they said they couldn't meet my salary request and wouldn't send a new contract. It felt super unprofessional to go through such a tough process, get an offer, and then have it pulled in less than a day. Definitely avoid this company.