Guideline Interview Questions
& Process

So I applied to Guideline, and the recruiter told me I'd have the typical chat with a team lead to see if we're a fit. But, surprise! My first meeting was with the team lead, and we immediately went into a Coderpad assessment. They'd emailed ahead saying it would involve solving an Rspec example set, but the recruiter also said two engineers would be on the call, yet only the lead showed up. The assessment itself wasn't great (check out the Interview Question below). I did get to ask about the job afterward, but it felt pointless by then. The 'lead' couldn't even answer simple questions about the Rails version (they're on an old, unsupported one), the codebase size (unsure), or how important security and testing are (seems like low priority). They're planning to hire 20 more developers onto a team that already has 50. Seriously? That's not a team I'd want to join.

Scheduling my interview with Guideline was a bit odd. The recruiter initially tried to set it for 8PM, which didn't work for me, so we rescheduled for a few days later. During the call, the recruiter went through my resume line by line, reading each item aloud and asking for confirmation. They seemed really interested in details from my resume. After that, I asked about the Customer Success role, but the recruiter said they were focused on filling many positions and didn't know much about this specific one. I then asked about the salary, and they mentioned an $80K OTE. When I said it was below my target, the recruiter went on a 5-minute explanation about how Guideline is a startup and they focus on their own pay philosophy, expecting people to join. I tried to wrap up the call, but they said I wouldn't get this job and then invited me to apply for sales roles instead.

The whole experience felt disrespectful. The process wasn't clear and they gave me wrong info about the interviews. The interviewers were late and unprepared. They also expect you to spend way too much time on interviews, with too many unnecessary rounds that seemed too long, suggesting poor time management. They asked for a take-home exercise, which is already not great, but would be more acceptable if it was a later stage and they were upfront about salary and benefits. They also seem unaware of their Glassdoor reviews, showing they don't care about their employees' opinions. It was a major time waste.

I applied for the Engineering Manager role and was contacted by Matt, the in-house recruiter. Matt was great, providing honest feedback. I interviewed with the Senior Director of Engineering, a Director of Engineering for a technical interview, and the CTO. There were also interviews focusing on database and system design. The process was enjoyable, with friendly staff. The technical aspect made it harder than easy, but manageable with a technical background. Some EM roles might not have a technical part. I agree an EM should be technical. One issue was the database design round. It was presented as open-ended but the interviewer had a specific design in mind and withheld details. I had to guess, and my solutions weren't what he expected, which he seemed unhappy about. He also seemed out of touch with how long tasks should take. Comments like "well we eventually got there, albeit in a roundabout way" felt negative, especially when he jumped in too soon, not letting me finish my thoughts. It wasn't a dealbreaker but was off-putting.