Lonely Planet Interview Questions
& Process

The interview felt friendly. They asked smart questions, told me a lot about the team and what the daily tasks involve, and also asked some technical questions. They followed up quickly, and it was a good experience overall. I'd recommend it.

I had an initial chat with an internal recruiter, which was helpful for setting expectations. Because a developer wasn't available, I was given a take-home assignment. It wasn't super hard but took a while to complete. I used Rails since that's what the job was for. They decided not to move forward after reviewing my assignment, and while I appreciated the feedback, it was disappointing to learn why. They mentioned I used deprecated methods, which I checked and wasn't true, and also thought Rails was hard to set up, which seemed odd for a Rails role. They had more comments on my tests than my actual code, so heads up.

I was contacted by email from a senior person in the department to schedule a phone chat. The call was with them, and it was about an hour long. We discussed some of their ongoing projects and how the departments collaborate. It felt more like a meeting than a formal interview, and the tone was professional yet relaxed. The interviewer mentioned they'd reach out by Tuesday (three business days), but I didn't hear back. I followed up a week later and was told they were still interviewing, so I guess I wasn't a strong candidate. About a week after that, I received a generic email saying I wasn't selected.

It started with a recruiter call, then a video chat with my potential boss. That interview was weird, he mostly talked and I think he only asked me one question. After that, there were two weeks of silence. When I asked for a timeline, they couldn't provide one. Finally, I got an email with questions from an article about tech interviews. I sent back my answers. Then, more silence, so I assume I got ghosted. The company seems cool, but their interview process needs work.