Paige Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was a bit longer than usual because of the holidays, but it wasn't too tough and felt pretty standard for a management role. I really liked that they took the time to make sure it was the right fit for everyone involved, which says a lot about the People and Engineering teams at Paige. Everyone I talked to was professional, open, and engaging. The interviews were usually an hour or less and scheduled conveniently for both sides. Even though I ended up taking another job, I thought this was a really great experience with a company that's doing important work and has a promising future.

The interview process included five 1-hour Zoom calls: one with the Director, one with a Lead Engineer, two with Staff Engineers, and one with a Senior Engineer. These calls focused on deep dives into past architectural decisions and implementation details of technologies like Kubernetes. I also had opportunities to learn about the company's operations, goals, and challenges, and everyone was open and friendly, making for a really positive experience.

This was a lot of interviews. First, a 30-minute video call with the recruiter. Then, a 1-hour video interview with a UI engineer, covering a high-level technical intro to the product. Next, a 1-hour technical interview with a peer developer that involved a live programming exercise. I had to build a stopwatch with start/pause functionality. I struggled with React for this and didn't finish, despite asking for help which wasn't really given. Surprisingly, I then had another 1-hour video interview with a different engineer, more conversational but still technical. I discussed the stopwatch issue and how I'd do it in vanilla JS. A fifth interview, a 1-hour video call with another engineer, possibly a manager. By then I was out of questions and tired. I was later told by phone that I didn't get the offer.

My interview experience was really bad, with no consideration for candidates' time or updates. The interviews were okay but a bit disorganized and repetitive. My recruiter changed midway through, from an external agency to an internal one. There were 4 interviews in total: a technical discussion with a coding challenge, an interview on architecture, ML, and testing, a coding interview, and a discussion on software engineering and cultural fit. After these 4 rounds, I had to wait 11 days for a decision. I tried contacting the company on day 7 but was ignored by the internal recruiter. Then, I got an automated rejection from the initial external recruiter saying the job was closed. The internal recruiter then told me the position was closed due to headcount issues in Europe but he would see if they could get approval and let me know. The next day, a third recruiter emailed to say the position was closed. I never heard back about headcount. It was a terrible experience, showing a clear lack of respect for candidates' time.