PatientsLikeMe Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process started with a background check to review my resume. Then, I had a take-home challenge using sample data. After that, the Data Science team reviewed my challenge submission, and finally, I interviewed with the leadership team.

The interview process was pretty standard, it kicked off with a phone screening. After that, I was invited in to meet with a few people. Upon arriving for the interview, I was informed that I'd be meeting with five different people, one after the other. The whole interview lasted close to three hours. Everyone I spoke with was really nice. I did find it a bit strange how one of the interviewers talked about their colleagues; it wasn't very professional and probably shouldn't have been brought up during an interview. The most confusing part of the whole thing was getting an email that said, "Unfortunately, as [I] slightly expected, this position has morphed once again we are now focusing more on facilities." I wouldn't mind this response so much except I don't think it's entirely truthful. The reason I say that is because the original job posting I applied to was put up 15 days ago, and they reposted the exact same position about half an hour after my interview. Both postings are identical.

So the hiring policy here is really weird, like anyone can veto a candidate. So you have people who hire you based on personal preference, like if they like you or how pretty you are, and skills are like, super low priority. If they see you as a threat, they'll just find another reason not to hire you. They gave me 4 questions and 40 minutes, and apparently I'm the only one who solved them all in the time given. But they said they didn't hire me because I didn't work in a team. It wasn't clear that was the criteria. I only asked the other two people in the room stuff I didn't know, like method names. They just sat there silently so they could say I didn't 'work in a team' after. They just put a laptop in front of me and said solve these. If I was a bit worse and needed more help, they might have hired me because I worked 'in a team'. They told me about a guy who could implement Levenshtein distance from memory, faster than the standard library, but they didn't hire him because 'he was lazy.' Same thing - they didn't want to hire someone they saw as a threat. It's probably nice working there if you can get past their stupid popularity contest. Oh, and they made me go up there during rush hour to have drinks with their manager before the actual interview. So dumb, what a waste of time.

I had a screen with the recruiter and then the hiring manager. After that, I went on site and met with the Head of Product, the hiring manager, a designer, and some engineers. They asked typical behavioral questions. One of them was a hypothetical question asking me to walk through how I would prioritize features. I followed up with them multiple times but they never responded and didn't even let me know I didn't get the offer.