Medium Interview Questions
& Process

The whole process was really smooth, even with me catching the flu and needing to reschedule after the first call. They were super communicative the whole way, no ghosting like I've seen elsewhere. I always knew what was up and felt like they were upfront. The steps were: 1. A quick call with a recruiter to check you're real. 2. A video chat with a Director to go over your resume and why you want to join Medium. 3. An on-site interview with 3-4 people, including lunch. 4. A final 1:1 phone call with the VP for the last okay. It took about two months total, but that was partly because of the holidays and my flu, plus traveling for the on-site. The interviews are mostly behavioral, focusing on your past experience and if you'd fit in, especially with the startup vibe and if you're really passionate about the product and willing to do what it takes to make it succeed.

This was honestly one of the most disorganized interview processes I've encountered during my several decades of experience in this industry. The recruiter actually texted me in the middle of my first interview to ask where I was. They need to staff up quickly, so I suppose some level of disorganization may be understandable. After my first round I didn't hear a thing from them for about three weeks. After my "final" round they said they would be in touch soon...it's been four weeks now, and I haven't heard a thing. Extremely unprofessional in my opinion.

So, the first step was a recruiter phone screen, just to see if I was a good fit. The person was nice and answered my questions. Then I had a take-home exercise which was relevant to the actual job and had automated tests. I passed that. Next, I spoke with the person who would be my manager about my background and culture fit, with typical STAR questions. I passed that too. After that was a 5-hour virtual onsite, which I could have split over two days but chose not to. This included behavioral interviews with the VP of Engineering, a Product Manager, and my potential direct manager. There was also a live coding session in Coderpad, which was part solo coding and part pair programming, and I solved both problems within the time limit, using Google for documentation as needed. The problems were relevant to the work. Finally, there was a Systems Design interview where I had to design a typical feature. The problems were fair and the people were great. I was rejected in the end, but that's fine. However, when I asked for feedback to improve, I was told they don't provide any. If they had given even a little feedback, especially after I spent so much time on the interviews and take-home, I would have rated the experience better. I will think twice about applying again because I don't want to invest over 12 hours just to get a generic rejection.

I applied on their website and about a week later, a recruiter reached out for some basic screening questions. Their only availability was in the evening my time, which I thought was a bit odd. During the screening interview, I was asked questions directly related to the job description, like if I'd managed a team or worked with publishers. Honestly, it felt like a waste of time since all that info was already on my resume. I tried asking them questions, but the interviewer, who had only been there a couple of days, didn't give very helpful answers. That was another red flag – it made me wonder how desperate they were to fill the role if they hadn't even trained their interviewers on it.