NAVEX Interview Questions
& Process

It was an average interview process. Started with an HR intro call. Then there was a 3-stage process, with each stage lasting an hour and a short turnaround time for answers. The first stage after HR was with the direct manager. This was the most technical stage, featuring many of the questions listed below. The second stage involved code reviews for a junior engineer using a contrived example. This was done via screen recording, where you looked at the other person's screen. Given they are doing a lot of AI work and expanding their team, the example was fixing an MNIST classifier that was classifying poorly due to changes in training run settings. Overall, the examples were simple. They avoided full LeetCode problems but be ready for 'what is wrong with this code?' type questions. The final interview was mostly about personality and general technical style. The overall experience was friendly but not very professionally run, with multiple interviewers being late due to 'scheduling issues'. They offered a cap of 125k for the role. The company emphasized their investment in AI for 'What AI means for NAVEX'. The pay is very low for the required seniority. It is a remote role. I made two minor technical mistakes: one on an esoteric question and not changing a setting in the MNIST example before time ran out, but these weren't dealbreakers. What was was the last interview where I 'didn't go in depth enough to the level of a senior staff engineer'. In hindsight, I should have picked a different project with more critical issues and discussed troubleshooting and high-level architectural problems for an additional 5-10 minutes. I also should have mentioned more about my tooling, especially CI/CD pipelines. These were the reasons for my rejection, stating I wasn't 'where they need me to be for the role'. They will likely continue to struggle with attracting talent at their offered price point. There was confusion about whether the role was for a Principal or Senior Staff Engineer. To do better, study the technical questions, have detailed answers about CI/CD and static code analysis tooling, and present a strong, high-level project journey description focusing on troubleshooting and architectural issues. Or, find a less nitpicky company that offers competitive pay. It's a safety job.

I was contacted by a recruiter on Linkedin and after some messages, I had a first screening call with them. Then, I had another interview with two managers from the team. The recruiter had trouble scheduling, not considering time differences between Australia and the US, even after I clarified. They once tried to schedule an interview with very little prep time for me. However, before the interview, they sent helpful prep tips. The interview itself was okay, the managers were nice and the questions were relevant. I didn't get the job in the end and received a generic rejection email with no specific feedback, just stating I have 'many wonderful attributes'. I think providing some constructive feedback is the least you can do for candidates who take time out of their day to interview. Seeing this lack of feedback in other reviews, I'd suggest NAVEX rethink this, as it's a big turn-off and reflects poorly on the company culture.

The interview process was lengthy, spanning over three months, and it was difficult to understand the exact nature of the job until the final stages. It began with a phone interview with a recruiter, followed by an interview with two leaders, during which I also had to submit a work sample within a three-day deadline. After that, there was a panel interview with the team. The internal recruiter would go weeks without contact after each interview, which was surprising. The two leaders didn't seem very invested in my candidacy, as if they were just going through the motions, so I was taken aback when I got invited to a panel interview. The team during the panel interview was very friendly and clarified the job responsibilities, which turned out to involve work at a much lower level than what was indicated in the job description.

Applied online and got contacted to schedule an interview about a week later. All interviews were via Microsoft Teams. The first one was with a recruiter, and if that went well, there was a second interview with the Senior Manager.