New Relic Account Manager Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was a 4-part sequence following initial contact: an HR interview, a manager interview, a technical assessment, and a sales presentation assessment. The whole process took about 8 weeks, though 5 of those weeks were spent waiting for the contract. The HR interview was straightforward, focusing on the process, the position, and my general fit for the role. Next, I spoke with my potential direct manager, who aimed to gauge my suitability for her team and prepare me for the subsequent stages. The technical assessment involved completing tasks of varying difficulty on the New Relic platform, with open-ended task descriptions allowing for different approaches. I then had to present and discuss my work, challenges, solutions, and future plans to a Technical Account Manager to evaluate my technical skills. I was given a bit over a week for this and it was granted. This stage was enjoyable and challenging. It was great meeting a potential teammate, and the interaction was professional but relaxed. Finally, I had to create and deliver a sales presentation pitching New Relic to a "client" (represented by sales and customer-facing leaders) within 48 hours to demonstrate my business/sales communication abilities. The prompt was very open-ended, requiring me to draw on my experience to create a compelling use case. This was also a positive experience. Overall, it's a lengthy and demanding process requiring significant commitment from both sides, but the assessments were engaging, interesting, and appropriately challenging, making them feel less like work. While some candidates might drop out due to time constraints, this likely results in higher quality candidates who are more likely to accept an offer. The people at New Relic were a major draw, displaying competence, kindness, patience, and helpfulness throughout. However, there were a couple of critical feedback points. Firstly, some information from HR regarding vacation and compensation wasn't entirely accurate; the performance-based bonus fluctuates significantly, and there's typically only one recharge week, not two. While HR's responses were technically correct with caveats, they could have been more upfront. Secondly, the delay between the final assessment, verbal offer, and official contract was frustratingly long (two weeks for the verbal offer, then three weeks for the contract), leaving me in limbo despite having another offer. This might have been due to summer vacations and an acquisition, but better expectation management would have helped. Despite these issues, the people, role, and offer were compelling enough to accept over the other opportunity.

Had an initial call with HR, but then it went silent for two months. They got back in touch a few months later to see if I was still interested (I wasn't, but I went along with it) and then vanished again. I emailed a few times asking for feedback but never heard back. Some friends who also interviewed there and I think they might have internal candidates lined up, potentially flying someone in from another office on a work visa, but they were using local candidates as a benchmark or just to make up the numbers. This seems to match a review from the Sydney office.

The interview process was a bit strange. I was called in for multiple interviews, but they kept canceling last minute. The HR person didn't even know who I had spoken with. Eventually, I got a verbal offer, and they said I'd get the written one in a couple of days. But the written offer never arrived, and nobody has called me back for weeks. Good thing I didn't quit my current job based on their verbal offer!