Incident IQ Interview Questions
& Process

The interview was going well, and I asked about how the company handles employee ideas or suggestions for changes. The Interviewing Manager reacted negatively, stating she doesn't appreciate feedback because "I already know what you need to do to be successful" and "it's usually an employee's fault for not listening to her."

It started with a 30-minute pre-screening coding exercise where I had to write a Fibonacci sequence method. Then, there was a 30-minute first call via video with a senior developer. It was a casual meet and greet where he explained the company's work, I shared my career goals, and we chatted about the company's background. The second call, lasting 2 hours, began as another meet and greet with a developer. About 10 minutes in, a manager joined. For the next 50 minutes, we discussed my experience and how I'd tackle technical challenges. Then, the manager introduced a coding exercise from the CTO, involving writing an AI algorithm for a robot to escape a maze using provided sensor functions (which I had to write myself). The exercise was presented in .NET Fiddle, and the 'execution' involved the manager talking through the code. He mentioned its 10 levels of complexity, noting no one had passed level 6. This was a variation of the 'Rat in a Maze' problem, but the maze was a poorly drawn JPEG, not a data structure. The manager mentioned it used to be a take-home task taking a whole day. I started with a complex approach, but he stopped me to explain the 'wrong' way first (hardcoding). After 20 minutes of that, he cut me off and asked if I had questions about the company, seemingly unwilling to let me attempt the actual problem. This was for a company making a basic CRUD dashboard with a pre-made front-end template. The interview process felt disproportionately difficult and abstract compared to the job's requirements.

I applied a while back and things moved fast once they got going, taking about two weeks from the phone screen to getting an offer. It started with a recruiter phone screen, then a Zoom with the hiring manager, and finally an all-day in-person meeting with about six people. Everyone was super friendly and I really enjoyed talking to them, no big egos here, just cool people, which matches what I've seen online about the team. However, the role felt different than what was described initially; it seemed to shift from a broader marketing strategy role to more of a data hygiene focus. They offered me the job over the phone, but it was $25k below my current salary, which I'd mentioned was my minimum. They seemed surprised I had an issue with it, and I declined on the spot. The next day, they came back with a revised offer, only $1k less than my current salary, and gave me until the end of the day to decide. I thought about it but still turned it down. Given the shifting role description and the initial lowball offer, I felt like I got a good sense of the company before even starting, and post-interview, the Glassdoor reviews confirmed my gut feeling.

The whole thing was pretty quick, like 2 weeks. I had 4 interviews. First was with a recruiter, we talked about my skills and what I'm interested in, they were really nice and then told me about the company. Then the second interview was on Zoom with the hiring manager. After that, I had a third interview on Zoom with people from other teams I'd be working with. The last interview was a 2-hour onsite. The recruiter kept in touch the whole time, asking how I felt I did after each interview and if I saw any areas for improvement, including after the onsite.