Pandora Interview Questions
& Process

The whole thing took about a month. It started with an initial 'top pick' interview, then a screening call. After that, I had a 1:1 with the design manager, followed by a portfolio presentation and a chat with the design team (who I might end up working with?). The design manager was there for that too.

The interview process was very long, over 3 months. It started with a recruiter screen, then a hiring manager interview, followed by a case study and an on-site. A lot of restructuring was happening due to an acquisition, which I wouldn't recommend interviewing during. After many rounds, the feedback post-on-site was positive, but then they paused everything because of the restructuring. The communication came from a 'no-reply' email, so following up wasn't possible. They should have probably cancelled or held off on the on-site interviews, as there was a lot of uncertainty mentioned by everyone I spoke to. It ended up being a waste of time after putting in so much effort for the presentation and doing 7 back-to-back 45-minute interviews without any breaks.

A recruiter reached out and we did a quick 3-minute phone call, then they set up an in-person interview. The onsite involved meeting a department manager, a team lead, and potentially an HR manager. It seems like with the SiriusXM merger, they're looking to build a team to 'simplify and automate' their current manual data processing for media billing and ad impression calculations. They emphasized wanting someone to help improve and streamline these billing processes. The onsite was fine, but I got a sense that the work-life balance culture might be a bit shaky. I think this place is probably best suited for new grads or people with 1-3 years of experience.

The interview process started with a recruiter screen, followed by a phone interview. Then there was an on-site interview which was the better part of the day, where you're in a small phone booth and different groups of people come to interview you. After that, there was a follow-up Skype interview. Then I was ghosted for a few weeks. When I followed up, they said someone was on vacation, but I think they were just stalling. I got ghosted again for a few more weeks before they finally confirmed they went with someone else. I was bounced around between recruiters with no consistent point of contact. Some interviewers seemed bitter due to a recent re-org and commented on growing pains, making Pandora seem like a bad place to work compared to competitors like Spotify. They seemed concerned I wouldn't be satisfied with the role, even though I wouldn't have applied if I wasn't. They also seemed to imply that designers with art direction experience wouldn't be satisfied as designers, and that certain art directors felt insecure and preferred purely production designers. This suspicion was confirmed in a strange last-minute Skype interview with the art directors where they asked about my 5-10 year career goals. When I said I'd like to be an art director someday, they told me the company was now 'flat' with limited growth for designers beyond 'designer 1' to 'designer 2'. After ghosting me for about a month despite my follow-ups, they finally said they chose someone else. I had already accepted an offer from a company that values its interview candidates by then. The salary was average with almost no benefits besides a pre-tax deduction for commuting.