Petal Interview Questions
& Process

The hiring process involved a few steps. It started with a chat with the hiring manager, then I spoke with some of the business partners who work in development and product. The final step was a quick design challenge, which I had to do on the spot with the hiring manager.

The interview process started with a recruiter call, then a frontend technical interview. The final round was quite long, about 5 hours, and included a frontend interview, data structures and algorithms, systems design, and meetings with the engineering manager and product manager. It wrapped up with a culture fit interview with an engineer from a different team. I appreciated the Talent team's transparency about the process, though the overall experience was just okay. Some things could have been handled better. For the final round, the itinerary mentioned they might end interviews early if the technical rounds didn't go well. While I get not wanting to waste time, it felt a bit inconsiderate given the length of the final round and the fact that all interviews were already scheduled. It felt like an ultimatum after I'd already committed my time. Also, in the final round, I was told the DSA interview would be in my preferred language. However, the interviewer immediately started with a Python problem without asking my preference. Since he didn't have one readily available in my choice, I just went with it to avoid losing more time.

The Chief People Officer guided me through the process. It started with a phone interview, followed by an initial onsite with the People Operations Specialist and the Talent Associate. The final round involved several hiring managers and other employees. While I enjoyed the conversations, some interviewers seemed unprepared and asked generic questions, while others appeared to be just checking boxes. I received feedback from the Chief People Officer, some of which I agreed with, though I felt other points focused too much on my admitted shortcomings like being too diplomatic or the difficulty of proving ROI for university recruitment. Still, the challenges this role presents seem exciting for someone wanting to impact TA at Petal.

Started with a 30 min phone call with a tech recruiter to discuss my expectations and the role/company. Then, there were tech rounds with two data engineering team members. The first was with a guy from the data eng team who gave me some schemas and sql questions. I felt he wasn't qualified to interview me, as he struggled with basic SQL concepts like case statements. This interview is where I got negative feedback about my SQL skills, which was frustrating because I believe the interviewer lacked knowledge. The second interview was a higher-level design problem with someone who seemed knowledgeable and straightforward. A couple of days later, I was told they weren't moving forward because the first tech round didn't go as they expected. My advice is to ensure interviewers are competent engineers to avoid wasting candidates' time.