Fora Interview Questions
& Process

It took about 2 months from the first contact to get rejected. The interview process involved a really difficult take-home assignment that was way more work than usual. The project was too big and didn't seem to match what they were actually looking for. It felt like they mostly cared about building an AI agent instead of actual product sense or judgment. The interview panel was all engineers, which made it hard to show off product leadership, prioritization, or focus on users. This was a bit of a mismatch for a product role. Communication wasn't great either, the hiring manager was hard to get a hold of and only responded after I followed up a bunch. Basically, the whole process was super tech-focused and didn't seem to respect candidates' time.

I had a 30-minute Zoom call with Laura, the leading recruiter. It was the typical 1st screening conversation: questions relating to resume and background. She explained that the format is an easy-to-medium LeetCode question, followed by either a frontend coding interview or a system design question, depending on my preference. The last round is onsite with the CEO and the team. I was pretty excited about the format. Two days later, I received an email saying, "After careful consideration, we’ve decided to move forward with other candidates for this role." I'm not sure if I ever failed an initial screening. I responded to the email, thanked her for her time and consideration. I also asked if there was any feedback. I didn't get a response. I can't figure out what I may have done or didn't do that would disqualify me before the technical part began.

It took over two and a half months for the whole interview process, which had four rounds. The first was with the Head of QA, mostly about my background and general testing. They asked me how I'd test certain things, like XYZ. The second round had two developers. The first part was technical, where I had to explain verbally how to find and fix flaky Cypress tests. The second part was more behavioral, asking about fitting into the culture and how I've worked with others and different departments. The third round was with a backend engineer, all about performance testing. They asked about the tools I've used, why I picked them, and to explain the whole performance testing process from beginning to end. The last round was a coffee meeting in person with the VP of Engineering. We started with a casual chat about my background, then got into performance testing details, and they finished with a quick demo of their app. It was a drag having to chase them for updates after each round because it wasn't clear if I should wait or if things were stuck.

So I had a recruiter call first, then a coding interview. After that, it was an onsite interview which included a conversation with a product manager about culture and product, a system design interview, and an API design interview, each lasting an hour. Then I had a meet the team coffee chat and a meet the cofounder chat. The team seemed really great, very friendly and collaborative. Eng leadership has a clear vision and trusts the team.