SetSail Interview Questions
& Process

The process started with a free design task, then a 4-hour second interview where I spoke with 5 people. This involved a presentation of the design work, followed by individual meetings. They seemed hesitant to voice concerns and moved on quickly. During the interviews, some asked broad questions about collaboration and organization, while others asked high-level questions but expected very detailed answers. A lot of the feedback felt like a gut reaction rather than based on facts, possibly because they didn't take notes. I also noticed some signs of inexperience and poor communication within the engineering team. The interview seemed more suited for a junior designer who is still learning and enjoys doing free work.

The interview process kicked off with a recruiter call that gave a great intro to the company. After that, there was a super realistic take-home assessment. The cool part was that the subject matter was shared in advance, so you could prep and weren't surprised by needing a standard library. I really liked and enjoyed doing it, it was a nice change from leetcode and a chance to show what I can do. The final part was a 4-interview panel. It started with a good chat about motivations, engineering style, and life at SetSail. Then came a coding interview with the engineering manager, which was pretty realistic though it did use DS&A. After that was a typical system design interview. The last chat was with the CTO, which gave great insight into leadership. I enjoyed all the interactions and thought the process was more than fair, not too easy but stressing communication and collaboration to keep a strong culture. The coding problems were realistic or close to it, needing some smarts. The whole process felt fair but stringent enough. I even got feedback during stages, which was unexpected and welcome, and it matched what I figured, so no surprises. I slightly missed the mark on the second coding round, which I also thought was fair. I plan to interview again.

The interview process was straightforward. A co-founder contacted me on LinkedIn, leading to several phone calls. The team and founders were very professional and pleasant. The process was typical for CSM roles I've encountered before. The final stage involved a presentation. I was offered the position, but declined for personal reasons. The interview steps were: 1. Phone call with the founder 2. Product demonstration 3. Interview with the Head of Sales 4. On-site presentation and interviews.

It started with some intro calls with recruiters, then got into the tech stuff. I ended up meeting with a bunch of the data scientists, and they each had their own kind of interview – like, covering stats, data analysis, machine learning, a presentation, and a coding challenge (leetcode style). There were over 10 interviews in total. It was a really long process, but they definitely checked to make sure I was a good fit. The interviews were pretty chill and conversational, and honestly, it was my favorite interview process so far.