Defense Unicorns Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process had 4 steps in total, including a meeting with the CEO. I went through 3 rounds: a cultural interview, a technical one, and a meeting with some managers. The whole process was quite slow, taking about 4 weeks for the 3 interviews. There wasn't much contact between rounds, mostly just for scheduling. They used a cool virtual interface called gather for the meetings, which felt a bit like a video game. The third meeting felt like a vibe check, with really open-ended and vague questions. The questions seemed to focus a lot on your experience and aptitude for working in an environment that's always changing and not super clearly defined.

I went through 2 rounds of interviews using their internal video chat system which was pretty unique, kinda like a gaming platform. The interviews were okay, but the job description for the role kept changing. Since it was the first time they were hiring for this role, some changes were expected, but the job description I got initially, what they said in interview 1, and what they said in interview 2 were pretty different. It seemed like they either weren't on the same page about what this role would be, or it was being changed without telling anyone.

This was one of the worst interview experiences I've had. I emailed the hiring manager beforehand to ask about the interview format (cultural, technical, background review, etc.), but got no response. When the interview started, the interviewer said, "as you know this is the cultural interview," which made preparation difficult. They also removed the job description from their website, so I had to use another site for prep, which lacked their core values and mission statement. This made me feel handicapped during the interview. The company's careers page had culture context, but I didn't see it because the job description was gone. As a woman of color, it's disheartening not to have a level playing field when being evaluated.

The interview process had three phases, the first one might have been the recruiter chat. One phase was a pair-programming assignment, and another was a more general conversation. The programming task was technically basic but effective at filtering out unqualified candidates. I got tunnel vision but still passed. I'm calling it difficult because it's harder than what most companies ask for, though I've heard Google interviews can be much harder. They are faster than the big companies but slower than some, like BAH. The last time I applied, I didn't hear back until I'd already started my new job. This time, the whole process took about a month. BAH's process was less than a week, but I delayed them because this was my first choice.