Curalate Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process is long, about a month, with more rounds than I've seen before. I spoke with a recruiter for a pre-screen, then a developer for a technical screen. After that, I had an in-person interview with 3 developers and 1 PM. Then I talked to the VP of Engineering for more questions, followed by another recruiter to prep for the CTO, and finally the CTO for more questions. It involves scheduling 6 separate interviews, mostly an hour each, but one was 3 hours long. The process also featured many quick-fire questions that were repeated, some from the technical screen showed up again in the in-person. A downside was that 3 developers incorrectly flagged technical questions as wrong, even though 2 were correct parts of a coding challenge. I couldn't explain one, but later found out it was correct after Googling it. It's frustrating when interviewers don't know the answers to their own technical questions. While the recruiter asks for feedback on the process, they don't offer any in return.

I applied after talking to someone at a career fair at my university. The first step was a phone interview where they asked some pretty easy programming questions and also asked about my resume. They got back to me quickly and invited me to their HQ in Philly, and it was easy to pick a date and set up travel. The onsite was made up of 3 interviews that covered front end/general programming, algorithms/data structures, and object-oriented design. Everyone I met was professional and knew their stuff, and they really liked talking about their business and technology. Even though I felt pretty good about how I did, I got an email about a week later saying they'd hired someone else who they thought did better on the design part.

The hiring process felt pretty long but it gave me a good vibe about the company and the people working there. I went through about 6 hours of remote interviews before eventually having an in-person interview. The questions were tough if you didn't have the specific experience they were looking for, but they seemed really fair to me. The team seemed super competent and easy to get along with, making me feel like they'd be great colleagues. I would have taken their offer if not for some personal reasons involving moving.

Applied online and heard back from the internal recruiter the next day. The recruiter was professional and direct, and the process moved quickly. Within one business day, I was informed I wasn't the best fit compared to other candidates. I wish I'd received some feedback on why, though. My overall impression of the company is positive, and I'd like to stay in touch for future roles.