Hatch (Menlo Park, CA) Interview Questions
& Process

The first step was a recruiter call to check my background, experience, and interests, and they also explained the product and company. The next step was a take-home exercise. It involved a system with two pushbuttons and a small display. I had to "stub out" display hardware calls and assume an external state machine handled input events. I created a state machine for button events and display events. They also wanted to see my approach to unit testing, so I made the stubbed calls abstract functions, allowing them to be linked with either RTOS code or a unit test harness. Although it didn't need to compile, I made it do so. I provided a script to build and run the tests on Linux. I also included working code for ESP32 with Zephyr or FreeRTOS in a separate directory, as a full implementation wasn't required. I tested it on hardware. I submitted the code via a private GitHub repo, giving the interviewer collaborator access. I expected the next step to be a live interview to discuss the code, trade-offs, edge cases, and my design/test philosophy. After a week of no response, I inquired about discussing the submission. They replied that the team decided not to proceed, stating they were looking for candidates with more technical depth and system design approach, which I found confusing given the exercise's limited scope. It felt like a waste of time due to an unclear take-home exercise with implicit expectations.

It was a good experience, the interviewers were nice and seemed to really value my background, which was better than some other places I've interviewed. The process involved an initial call with the recruiter, followed by a chat with the hiring manager, then a take-home assignment. After that, two engineers reviewed the take-home test during a platform interview, and the manager conducted a systems interview.

I had a nice interview with the hiring manager and was then scheduled for another interview with them. But a few hours before that, I found out the position was filled. It was disappointing, but these things happen. The recruiter had warned me that others were further along, so I understood. The role was posted again 3 days later. I contacted the recruiter twice to see if the first candidate fell through and if I could still be considered, but I never heard back and felt ghosted, especially after they told me to 'Keep In Touch'. Some follow-up or explanation would have been appreciated, particularly since I was moving forward initially.

I went through the interview for a marketing role. It was a bad experience. The hiring manager asked questions that seemed random and not related to the job. They were more interested in how my old companies handled marketing issues instead of my skills. I felt like my time wasn't valued. After that, I got a take-home task with unclear instructions. I worked on it for a day because the job market is tough. A week later, I got a copied and pasted email. I put a lot of effort into the interview and the take-home, and a simple follow-up from the recruiter or hiring manager would have been nice. I wouldn't suggest this to others.