Discord Interview Questions
& Process

First, there was a recruiter call, and they got back to me in a few days about the next round. Then, I had a hiring manager round, and they took a week to let me know about the next steps. After that, there was an assessment that took 3 days to complete, about 1-2 hours, and they confirmed the next round a few days later. Finally, the "Onsite Day" involved 5 interviews over 5 hours, with a 15-minute break. I met with developers, creative producers, the analytics team, and future coworkers.

The interview process had 7 rounds in total. It kicked off with an initial recruiter screening, followed by a first coding interview. The subsequent 5 rounds were condensed into a single 6.5-hour 'on-site virtual interview' block. This block included a domain-specific security interview, a systems design round, a second coding interview, a project retrospective, and finally, a behavioral interview. The initial screening and first coding interview were pretty straightforward. However, the virtual on-site was quite challenging and demanded significant preparation. For instance, for the behavioral part, the recruiter advised reviewing their 7 core principles and preparing 3 specific examples for each, utilizing the STAR/CAR method, which amounts to 21 distinct stories. Despite the effort, they were slow to respond, delaying their feedback twice before ultimately rejecting my application. The substantial effort I invested in applying and interviewing didn't lead to an offer, and while I own that outcome, the preparation required was indeed immense.

The interview process had four typical stages and spanned three weeks. It started with a recruiter screen, followed by a hiring manager screen that focused on past projects and highlighted our company values, similar to Discord. Then, there was a 45-minute technical screen involving a basic SQL question and a case study. The process concluded with a full panel onsite, consisting of four interviews: one behavioral, one SQL, one on data science soft skills and case study, and one on data science hard skills and case study.

I got an email from a Discord recruiter about my application. The recruiter call was to chat about my background and career history and for them to tell me more about the job. It felt like a formality to confirm I was real and honest on my application. Next, I had a skills assessment interview. Two engineers sent me a link with the task and offered some guidance. It was a multi-part assessment to get a Web Socket chat program running for multiple simultaneous users. I didn't do well because the documentation was confusing and lacked detail, like not mentioning multiple connections to a Web Socket, which is crucial for the software's purpose. I didn't pass the first stage and was told I wouldn't move forward. While I get Discord needs to vet engineers, using vague, lacking software for assessments isn't ideal. People apply based on the job description. Unless the role specifically involves maintaining a TCP Web Socket service, it shouldn't be used for vetting. An engineer could excel at TCP Web Socket services but be bad at the actual job, or vice versa. Using assessments unrelated to the actual position doesn't help anyone. It's like asking a biologist to take a geologist exam or a pastry chef to do a butcher's test.