PagerDuty Application Support Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was excessively long and time-consuming. It started with a phone screening, followed by interviews with potential colleagues and the head of technical support and a supervisor. After that, I had to complete an essay on an IT topic and attend a lengthy meet-and-greet with most of the team. This took a lot of time off my current job for a salary that didn't seem to justify the effort and multiple interview rounds. It felt awkward to share personal details with the entire team while still being evaluated. Ultimately, despite reaching the final two or three candidates, I wasn't hired. The whole process spanned over a month. They mentioned keeping me in mind for future openings, which felt disingenuous. This experience significantly lowered my impression of PagerDuty, and I would discourage others from interviewing there.

Submitted application online and got an email within 2-3 days from the lead recruiter to set up an introductory phone call; phone screen lasted 30 minutes and included basic questions. After the phone screen, I got an email from the recruiting coordinator to schedule some time for another phone call with the managers. Manager call (with Director and Tier 1 Support Manager) also lasted 30 minutes; their questions were more specific to the role and they asked for writing samples at the end of the call. Shortly after sending over my samples, I was invited for a 3-hour onsite interview. I was advised to sign up for a PagerDuty trial account (prior to the onsite) to get familiar with the product and read through a few of the knowledge base articles since I would be going through exercises during the interview. The onsite interview consisted of 4 one-on-one interviews with the team. There was very little small talk as most of the interviews involved writing exercises that took up a good portion of time; I wasn't expected to work through all of the exercises, just as many as possible. Presumably the objective was to gauge writing ability and observe how I worked through certain situations. I had written a great deal during the interviews (including a moderate-length blog post) so I was pretty exhausted by the time I left but I was also impressed at how thorough the screening process was. All of the interviewers were efficient, kind, and provided candid answers to my questions about the role, the support team, as well as the company culture. I came away with a very positive impression of the experience overall and was delighted when they called to offer me the position a few days later.

The interview process began with a recruiter phone screen, followed by a manager phone screen. This initial part of the process felt efficient and positive. Next, I was asked to submit writing samples to the manager. After sending four detailed written samples demonstrating how-to guides, screenshots, and troubleshooting steps for various issues, a three-hour on-site interview was scheduled. The on-site included four 1:1 interviews with team members and some exercises. My impression after the on-site was great team + great product! I left thinking this is a company worth investing a long-term career in!! However, the final response left me quite puzzled. The feedback was contradictory. The recruiter said, "The team felt you were the perfect culture and technical fit, but your responses were too general." If that was the reason for not getting an offer, an email would have been sufficient. I'm very disappointed because their response doesn't align with "you're the perfect culture and technical fit"... Was that the real reason? I'll never know. Takeaway - Sometimes "internal issues" might have nothing to do with performance. Stay positive and move on!