NAUTO Interview Questions
& Process

I had some concerns about how long the company has been around and how developed their product is. I'm not sure if leadership has a clear vision for the product and I wasn't impressed with what I saw or heard. It really feels like they present the product/service as one thing, but it's actually just a stepping stone to a hidden strategy. Other people I talked to outside of the interviews mentioned that the vision was flawed and that top management is disconnected from the rest of the employees.

The interview process was super fast, took less than a week, which was great. It went straight to an onsite interview. The recruiter was really nice and showed me around. Then, I had lunch with the Director of Engineering, CTO, and some engineers for a casual chat, like a meet-and-greet. After that, I had two 45-minute technical interviews. The first one involved looking at code, figuring out what it does, what's wrong, and how to make it better, all on paper. It was tough if you don't code much, but they really want to see your thinking process. For me, it was medium difficulty and relied on experience. The second technical interview was a standard whiteboard coding problem, like a medium/hard LeetCode question. The interviewers were great, sharing a lot about their work at Nauto. Then, I had two 30-minute interviews with the recruiter and the Director of Engineering, covering typical HR stuff. I also met a few more engineers for informal chats, no technical stuff. I got an offer within a week, so it was a really positive experience overall.

The interview process spanned from mid-August to mid-November. It felt like I was put on the back burner, but a friend clarified that no one person is to blame. The initial recruiter left without properly handing over my application. After I reapplied, I went through three phone interviews and two onsite visits. The phone interviews were with a recruiter, an analyst for a SQL screening, and the department director. The director left the company soon after our call, but the first onsite interview still happened. This onsite involved three casual meetings with two analysts and an AI engineer. It was hard to tell how prepared the interviewers were. Later, a second onsite was scheduled, with two meetings: one with a c-level executive and another with the same AI engineer from the first onsite. The c-level executive presented Google-style scenarios relevant to a Senior Analyst role. The engineer posed a technical challenge about queues and double-linked lists, which seemed more suited for an engineering candidate, but maybe they wanted to gauge my interest and learning ability? The AI engineer was a great teacher and patiently explained these concepts.

The interview itself went pretty well, I thought. All the people I spoke with were really nice and polite, and I had a good experience with each of them. The bad part was after the interview. They initially said they'd let me know by the end of the week. That Friday, I didn't hear anything, so I emailed them on Monday about the role's status. They replied quickly, saying they needed more time and would update me by the end of that week. Again, nothing by Friday, so I reached out again on Monday. They said the same thing. At that point, I wasn't expecting much, and they still didn't contact me about the role by the end of that week. I stopped trying to reach them, which was a bit disappointing because the people I interviewed with seemed so nice and professional. I totally get that people are busy and need time to pick the best candidate, but as someone looking for a job, I really appreciate employers who give me a timely response, or at least reach out to me first with more info about the role and when I might hear back. I'm sure many can relate, but even getting a rejection is better than being left hanging and in the dark. To this day, I still haven't received an official rejection, even though they told me I was one of their "top choices." All in all, the people were great, but there seemed to be a lack of organization or professionalism.