Grafana Labs Application Support Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I applied online and after 2 months, I got an interview invitation. I picked a timeslot and did a written assignment where I had to reply to an angry customer. Later, they cancelled the interview just 40 minutes before it was scheduled, saying the written assignment wasn't good enough. I think they should have asked for the assignment during the application process, not after inviting me to an interview, to save everyone's time. Also, a single written assignment can't really show someone's experience, skills, customer handling, personality, or motivation. I'd expect at least one face-to-face interview before rejection. It's funny because their own support staff sometimes give very short replies on their forum, like just "Welcome @user123" with a screenshot and no real engagement or empathy. I'm surprised by how unprofessional the whole thing felt, it was the worst interaction I've had with a company.

I applied after seeing a LinkedIn post. An HR person emailed me saying my profile was shortlisted and gave me a written task: reply to a disappointed customer. After they liked my response, HR called me for basic questions before passing me to the team. Next, I got a take-home assessment to build Grafana dashboards however I liked. Then, I had a tech interview with a senior Support Engineer where I had to explain my dashboard creation process and any challenges. They also asked more questions about my resume, tech skills, and how I troubleshoot issues. I passed that. The next round was with the Hiring manager who asked about handling angry customers, my strengths/weaknesses, troubleshooting experience, and communication skills. I got rejected after this round. I think they wanted someone with direct external customer experience, a core product support role, not just an operations person. I did enjoy building the dashboards though.

The entire process was quite lengthy. I went through 6 interviews and completed 2 practical assignments; one focused on my interpersonal skills and the other on my technical capabilities. A definite plus was the ability to select my interview date from a shared company calendar. All my interviewers were highly professional and readily answered any questions I had.