Genies Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was a bit of a mess. I was initially scheduled for an interview but they no-showed right before it was supposed to start. After finally getting through that first interview, I was told I'd be interviewing with leads and officials soon, just had to wait a day to schedule it. That was almost two weeks ago. In the meantime, I had one more interview that was really vague about what the job actually was, and I saw the position reposted. Eventually, I got a rejection. It felt like a really poor way to treat candidates, and I'm not sure it reflects well on the company.

Quite a few rounds for a startup, and some people might need more interview training. I was asked a variation of the same question by everyone I spoke to, 'How do you work out disagreements between product and design?' which clearly signaled to me that would be the biggest challenge in this role, on top of the reviews from people who work there on this site. One person clearly was not happy with their job, burnt out, or was having a bad day. They hadn't read my resume before the call. Another person mentioned they had a different idea of what the job's responsibilities should be compared to what was in the job description. Another person talked most of the time, and it was hard to get a word in. The recruiter was great, organized, and responsive.

I had a recruiter call first, who was super friendly and helpful. Then a phone screen where the interviewer really knew their algorithms, which made it interesting. The onsite was a mixed bag. One interviewer was fixated on a brute force solution, even after I showed him a better way with diagrams on Coderpad. He insisted his way was the 'right' way, even though my approach was correct. It felt like he had a specific method in mind and wanted me to follow it blindly. The other interviewer was great, knowledgeable about algorithms and open to new ideas, someone I'd actually want to work with. The second interviewer... not so much.

I was contacted by the COO of Genies for a Lead role via email. I had several conversations with him and met the team and CEO after a few video calls. They shared their work, and I liked their energy and passion for the product. This made me leave my stable job to join them.