Pachama Interview Questions
& Process

I talked to a recruiter, then got a take-home assignment. The take-home involved connecting a backend API to a frontend and a database. They wanted me to develop the frontend with minimal guidance. I completed the task, focusing on functional code and reusable methods, but didn't put much effort into frontend styling. I wasn't moved forward in the process, which felt odd since I met the requirements. It seems they expected more creative UI development and personal design choices.

So, the first part of the interview was a take-home assignment that was honestly pretty rough and felt like it wasn't well thought out. It involved working with raster data, which was new to me. My personal computer setup is pretty old, and I didn't have a proper dev environment, so I had to spend a decent amount of time just getting it ready so I could even look at the files. After that, I had a few questions about the assignment, but it took several business days to get any kind of reply. At that point, I just bailed because it was taking forever and it wasn't clear what they were even trying to test. Like, was it if I had a good computer? If I could mess with raster data? Or actual coding smarts? If it was the last one, there are definitely better ways to figure that out without needing a specific tech setup. It didn't seem like they had put much effort into creating a good interview process.

The interview process began with a phone screen, and it took about two weeks from applying to get to that stage. After the phone screen, there was another two-week wait for a take-home project, which was quite extensive and likely required a full weekend to complete. I later found out this project was similar to work the company was actively doing. After the take-home was reviewed, I was informed it passed and moved on to three more interviews: a technical interview with a tech lead, a coding interview, and an interview with the engineering manager. I requested an expedited process due to having other offers. The technical interview was enjoyable, focusing on nature and ML maturity. The coding interview was a LeetCode Easy/Medium problem, where I also answered Big O questions. The manager interview was more behavioral and experience-focused. The final round was an interview with the CEO, which involved rapid-fire behavioral questions. During this CEO interview, I noticed the interviewer seemed distracted and asked overly personal questions about my upbringing and family. Despite this, the CEO's parting words were positive. However, I was ultimately rejected, with the reason given being a timeline mismatch, despite knowing I had other offers. When I asked for more specific feedback, I was told it was a tough decision and I was a great candidate, but they couldn't provide further details, which I found frustrating given the positive signals throughout the process.

Had a quick first chat with someone from HR to check for culture fit and to ask about salary expectations, which was super efficient. Then, I was asked to send over some of my previous work samples, like different kinds of content I'd created, or I could make something new for the interview. Lastly, I met with the Marketing Director for about an hour. We dove deep into my past experience, and she also took time to answer my questions about the role.