Eight Sleep Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process had 5 rounds. It started with a Hiring Manager screen, then a take-home project, followed by a take-home extension. After that, there was a CTO interview, and it concluded with a CEO interview. The hiring manager was great, very knowledgeable about Android and easy to talk to. The take-home project was good, using real code, which was respectful of my time and gave a realistic idea of the job. We agreed on technical direction. However, the CTO interview was different. Some questions felt challenging and aggressive. The engineering culture seemed concerning, with the CTO mentioning 20-30 PRs daily using AI, and viewing human review as a bottleneck for speed. This made me pause about the quality practices, especially for a role focusing on a single platform and long-term maintainability. The product itself is great, the HM is strong, and the tech stack is modern. But if engineering culture and code quality are important, ask specific questions about maintaining quality at speed.

It was about 10 minutes of behavioral questions, followed by 30 minutes where I had to troubleshoot their products by dealing with situational problems. I had to read backend code and figure out where the problem was and how to fix it. The whole process was pretty smooth and easy, and the interviewer actually gave me feedback on how I was solving problems.

The interview process consisted of 3 calls with the Art Director, Product Design Lead, and CEO, plus a practical test between the first two calls. During the call with the Art Director, I was asked to immediately start a freelance project with a very tight deadline, and was assured this would replace the practical test. However, after the call with the Product Design Lead, I received a message on Slack (without any email notification) with the details of the practical test, which I still had to complete, contrary to what was previously agreed. I completed the test and scheduled the call with the CEO, but he never showed up. Neither he nor the people I had spoken with previously ever responded to any emails again. The most embarrassing and unprofessional experience I have ever had.

The early parts of the hiring process were pretty good, with some interesting talks with leaders, and I liked how those behavioral interviews helped check if I was a good fit for the company and the job. But, the take-home project and the panel interview that came next were really tough and didn't make for a great candidate experience. The take-home assignment was a lot, asking for a detailed project plan and testing strategy for a new company launch, but with hardly any details, so I had to make a bunch of guesses, which took a lot of time and was unclear. Plus, the 72-hour deadline was over a weekend, which just added stress without any room for flexibility. I didn't even get to present my work to explain my assumptions or have a real discussion. For the panel interview, it seemed like they barely looked at my submission before the meeting, which became obvious during our chat. They started asking questions that went beyond the assignment, like about targeting new customers, KPIs, and strategy frameworks. These are good topics, but they weren't part of the assignment's focus or the limited info I got. They acted like it was an executive review, giving harsh, on-the-spot feedback on parts of my work without letting me explain my thinking. It felt awkward and super high-pressure, not like a normal collaborative work environment where you'd have support and inside info. To make things worse, a VP just left the call without saying anything, which also felt unprofessional. It really seemed like they didn't care about the time and effort I put into the take-home since they didn't review it properly or discuss it. Honestly, it felt like a mismatch in what we expected, and the assignment being so open-ended, plus the panel not being prepared, made it a really uncomfortable situation. For future candidates, it would be better if they made the assignment's scope clearer, allowed time to present the work to provide context, and made sure the panel was on the same page about how they were evaluating things to make it a more productive and respectful experience.