Qumulo Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process involved a recruiter phone call, followed by a Zoom with the hiring manager. Then there was a take-home technical assessment for a full-stack app. After that, a meeting with the team (hiring manager, PM, engineer) to discuss the assessment and field questions. Next, an algorithms interview with a senior engineer, then a web-coding interview with the hiring manager. The process continued with a leadership interview with the CTO and a system design interview with an EM. I enjoyed the chats, questions, and problems. I always had time for my questions. But after finishing, feedback took 2-3 weeks, and then I got ghosted for another week until they said another candidate was selected. The whole thing took a month for feedback. I understand I could have done better in algorithms and system design, but other companies don't leave candidates hanging for a month without responding.

So, a recruiter named Anthony from Qumulo hit me up on LinkedIn. I didn't know Qumulo, but they sounded cool, so I chatted with him on the phone. It went great, and he seemed pretty technical for a recruiter. We agreed I'd meet with their VP of Engineering, Karim, to talk about them and me. That was a nice change, and I really liked Karim. It felt like we were interviewing each other, and I got all my questions answered about the company, its issues, and what they need. I felt like I'd really like working with Karim. Anthony then messaged me to set up an in-person tech screen. The guy I met was really laid-back. We only spent about half the time on a coding problem, which was a bit tricky with edge cases. The rest of the time we just talked about my past work and the systems I'd used. He was impressive because of his questions; he clearly knew distributed systems well and paid close attention to my answers. He even stayed late so I could ask him more questions about himself, the company, and the job. Anthony followed up quickly, said the tech screen went well, and they wanted me back for the main interview. That included a design interview, a whiteboard session, lunch (just a normal lunch), a laptop interview, a fit interview, and I think one more. The interviewers were pretty good overall. They asked a few questions that were similar to others I've seen, but not exactly the same. I got good vibes from everyone, better than at other places. People seemed happy with their jobs, the company, and their work. At the end of the day, I met with Anthony again. He explained the next steps and said I'd get a preliminary yes/no by Monday, followed by either an offer or feedback on why it didn't work out. I got the 'yes' before I even got home, and the offer was in my email the same day. It matched exactly what we'd discussed. No surprises. I signed it that weekend and start next Monday, which I'm excited about.

It was a phone interview with some basic algorithm problems. The first was checking for duplicate numbers. The second problem involved two sparse matrices where I had to find all the same values at the same indices. The last part was a follow-up to implement an iterator for the second question's task. I thought I did well, but I was rejected. I asked for feedback, but they said there were no more details and many competitive candidates, suggesting it might not be the right time for me.