Personalis Interview Questions
& Process

Applied and got an email 8 days later to set up a phone screening. Had a Zoom interview with the hiring manager the next week. It was mostly technical questions about Bash, Python, and genetics. I could type my answers in the Zoom chat or just say them. The interview was an hour long. Never heard back from them after.

The interview process itself was fine. I liked the job description, the people, and thought it would be a good fit for what they wanted. After the on-site, their recruiter called me and said they were prepared to make me an offer, but wanted to know if I was willing to negotiate my salary expectations (I'd requested middle of the posted range). I said sure, I'd take a lower salary for more stock or a signing bonus. She said they were a public company so they weren't allowed to offer more than 10k shares over 4 years (what?). I asked what was the exercise price and she said "current market value." I asked how that was a benefit since i could just go buy them myself at that price? She said she didn't know. I asked about a signing bonus and she said she couldn't give me one. I don't really understand how that was a "negotiation." I said that if they couldn't offer anything then the salary I listed is what it would take for me to consider taking the job. She asked when I could start and I gave a date she didn't like. I said I could start earlier if they would match my expected bonus payout or stock options I'd be missing out on by starting earlier. She said she couldn't do that. We agreed on a 4 week timeline but at that point she was sounding frustrated that the "negotiation" wasn't going well. She said "the team doesn't know I'm making this call" and I thought that was a really weird thing to say. She said she would meet with them and finalize the offer and send it the in a few days. After a week passed I followed up but didn't hear anything for another week. Then I got a very short email (2 weeks after initial verbal offer) that they'd actually gotten several strong candidates after the call and wanted to interview them and she would get back to me. That's when I knew I wasn't getting an actual offer. Overall that was a really weird call and I feel like I probably dodged a bullet.

The entire interview process spanned over 4 weeks. Initially, I completed an online programming test on a third-party platform where I chose C. The difficulty of the questions adapted based on my performance; better results led to more challenging problems. I managed to score higher than 89% of other test-takers, which required a good grasp of complex data structures and function pointers. Following that, an interviewer assigned me an online algorithm test. I had to write pseudo-code in a Google Doc while communicating with the interviewer over the phone. The final stage was an onsite interview where I presented my PhD research and answered some questions about NGS.

The interview started with the interviewer giving a rundown of the job, what the role involves and what they expect. Then, we moved on to behavioral questions about my previous work with data and my future career goals. The interview finished with technical questions testing my knowledge on cell biology and coding skills. A lot of these seemed focused on remembering syntax and facts rather than how to use them.