OpenGov Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process felt a bit too academic and boring, making me lose interest halfway through. The questions were about abstract ideas without any real-world connection or reason, even when I asked for more info. For example, during a search bar task, the interviewer really drilled down on how to test things: "Why did you pick this approach? What other testing methods are there? Can you recall the syntax for writing tests?" With today's AI tools, focusing on memorizing syntax feels old-fashioned and not how engineers actually work. Honestly, it didn't feel like a true test of problem-solving for a senior role.

The interview process felt really disorganized and unprofessional. I had a scheduled 30-minute recruiter screen that ended up going for an hour. The recruiter was nice but seemed inexperienced with interviews, spending about 15-20 minutes talking about the company and their work, which felt like a poor use of time since we ran over by 30 minutes and they never checked if I was okay with the time. Their questions were very basic, focusing on definitions of words I used or asking for extremely detailed information about my current organization's structure, which I gave but didn't see the relevance for assessing my fit. The second call was with a peer who also seemed new to interviewing. After some small talk, they seemed unsure how to start, making it awkward, and I ended up having to guide the conversation with prompts and questions. It was evident they didn't have a clear objective for the conversation, judging by the questions they asked.

So, the recruiter will tell you about an assessment you need to do, and they'll make it sound like it's not a real problem the hiring manager has, like 'you won't be doing free work.' Then, on a call with the hiring manager, towards the end, they'll ask you to do this assessment, saying it's a quick 30-minute thing and that they already know the answers, so it's not unpaid work. After that, there's a panel interview with some people from the team. But, like, a lot of red flags here: the assessment takes way longer than 30 mins, they totally misled you. The hiring manager wants to see all your steps for calculating bonuses and makes you do it in a Google Sheet, which is weird because it seems like they don't know how to do it themselves. They specifically said don't hard-code formulas, which makes me think they can't do the calculations. And the hiring manager has no experience in compensation, which explains why they need you to spell everything out. Also, the recruiter said someone was hired in Feb, but this job has been posted for 9 months straight, which is super weird. The job's been open for almost a year, so be careful with this one.

Interviewing at OpenGov was a pleasant experience - the company prides itself on its values and the employees seem excited to work on a product that sees immediate impact to people's lives. The entire process took about 6 weeks. The first interview was with Nadine (recruiter). The second interview was a 1hr technical interview in javascript with two software engineers (2 LC questions - 1 easy, 1 medium). Third interview was with the senior director of engineering and this was a culture fit/behavioral standard interview. The fourth interview was coding up a React app with two software engineers. Here they test for your React and HTML skills. The final interview was with the architect and this was a basic back and forth system design interview. Though I did not go with the offer for personal reasons, OpenGov seemed like a close-knit fast paced company where one can expect to make great progress in their software engineering career.