Indigo Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

First, I had a 30-minute phone screen with talent acquisition where they asked typical background questions and mentioned they'd follow up if I moved on. Then, talent acquisition emailed me to set up a Zoom tech screen with the hiring manager. Unfortunately, the hiring manager didn't show up. I contacted talent acquisition, and after hours of waiting, they apologized and said they'd reschedule. Days later, talent acquisition set up another Zoom tech screen, this time with a different engineering manager, not the actual hiring manager. During this screen, I answered work-related background questions and solved a Leetcode medium problem, which impressed the manager, who then invited me to a 'virtual on-site.' The virtual on-site involved meeting the actual hiring manager, a product/business team member, and two software engineers individually. These sessions included simple live coding and 'collaborative' system design questions. Everything went well, and I felt good about my chances. After a week with no response, I followed up with talent acquisition. A week after that, I finally got a rejection citing 'lack of experience.' They claimed it took over 3 weeks to respond because they liked me but were checking for other team fits, despite my experience being on my resume. This felt like a disorganized and confusing process, and I doubt their stated reason. They never indicated experience was an issue, making the whole 2+ month ordeal feel like a waste of time.

The interview process started really well, with my open-source contributions being acknowledged and the initial pull request screen being a positive experience. The HR team was very communicative. My travel arrangements were a bit disappointing (coach, exit row), and I wasn't offered upgrades or a more straightforward way to handle expenses like other companies do (e.g., gift cards). The hotel was nice, though. The office itself is cool, though the open floor plan was a bit chaotic, and the location is in an unexpected, not very walkable area. I came down with a bad cold before the onsite interviews and let everyone know I was feeling unwell. The first 'interview' was more of a check-in. The second was a disappointing, typical algorithm question (convert number to Roman numerals), which I find irrelevant. The third involved white-boarding a full-stack application and focused on minutiae of web dev, which felt like showing off and could have been seen in my open-source work. The fourth was more enjoyable, discussing GraphQL and past experiences, and my SQL skills. The interviewer skipped a code challenge, remarking on why the initial person asked for it. The fifth was an HR conversation with questions that felt ambiguous in their weighting. Ultimately, I was told my technical skills weren't up to their Principal Engineer standard, despite my extensive experience with complex data manipulation, tooling, backend services, and high-impact open-source projects. They didn't take me up on my offer to showcase my open-source work. Overall, the process felt generic and not reflective of the actual work, especially for a Principal role, more akin to what a junior candidate might face.

I had a phone screen with the hiring manager, then an in-person interview with some engineers and the VP of Engineering. I thought the manager and peers were great, we had good technical talks, and I was excited about the opportunity. The interview with the VP was the hardest part, it was like a 2-hour therapy session where he dug into my personality, asking about my parents, where I grew up, my childhood schools, and my favorite teachers, then went through my entire work history. He called it a 'fun' chat, but I found it awkward. I didn't get a callback, so I guess it didn't go well.