Ecosystems Interview Questions
& Process

I found this gig on Monster and threw my hat in the ring. They got back to me super fast, like 2-3 days. First, we had a phone chat to see if I fit and to give me the lowdown on the role. Then, I got a take-home assignment. After they checked out my work, they invited me for an in-person interview. I met with three folks there – one partner and two leads. This part really dug into how I approached the exercise and also covered my general background and past jobs. After that, I moved on to the final interview. In this last one, I met with the two partners I hadn't seen yet. This chat was mostly about getting to know me as a person and my career journey.

Found Ecosystems through LinkedIn when I was looking for a job. A Value Consultant reached out to me for a first round interview. It was a pretty basic phone interview, like tell me about yourself and your goals. The main goal was to get to know me as a person, not just look at my resume. The next step is a bit more involved. Ecosystems wants people with lots of skills, like setting deadlines, following through, and doing superior work. There's an exercise to test if you can do the job of a value consultant. I got to see the exercise and pick my own deadline before I committed. After I sent in my exercise, they offered me an in-person interview at the company. The first part of the in-person was with other Value Consultants where I presented my exercise and defended it, then I spent time getting to know them. After that, I spoke with the partners. These are not your typical interview questions! Ecosystems is one of those companies that really thinks its employees are its greatest assets. So, they really inspect everyone thoroughly to see not just your skills and interests, but your values, goals, and personal beliefs. It was one of the most honest interviews I've ever had. It was super clear that the company lives and breathes its values. I got an offer.

The interview process for a Software Engineer position at Eco is intense and thorough. There are four stages -- initial phone screen (~20 minutes), an at-home coding challenge (time varies on individual), an in-person technical assessment (can take up to 2 hours) after which references are consulted, and finally a full-company interview. In my fourth round, there were five people in the room, two or three on the phone, then I was interviewed by the partners and finally the CEO one-on-one. The final round took about an hour. Eco's interview process is excellent for two reasons: 1) As a candidate, you will know whether you want to work at Eco by the end of the four rounds. You'll meet nearly everyone in the company (it's a small company) and really get to know the dev team. 2) Eco is able to ensure that every person who joins the team fits in with the ENTIRE team and will genuinely enjoy going to work every day. The small size of the company allows them to vet every candidate with this thorough process and it's proven to work.

It was a pretty drawn-out interview process. I had several phone interviews with different people. Then there was a video interview where I met with three employees. I also had to complete an Excel project. I decided not to accept their offer because the salary was too low and the benefits weren't very good. I felt like they were stringing me along the whole time. After I made one mistake on the Excel project, they told me I had to email different people apologizing for it if I wanted to continue in the interview process to 'prove' that I was interested.