Sift Interview Questions
& Process

So the interview was pretty standard for a Senior Data Scientist role. They asked about ML system design, which covers the whole pipeline basically. Also some basic SQL questions, and then a behavioral part where they wanted to know about my past experiences related to communication, ownership, and decision-making. The main goal was to see how I solve problems, understand ML stuff end-to-end, and handle data queries, plus my soft skills.

classique avec presentation du parcours d'etude puis ensuite des diverses experiences profesionnelles et enfin les atouts pour ce poste pour lequel je postule et mes motivations pour le poste en question ensuite ils ont voulu savoir mes pretentions salariales et ma date de disponibilité pour commencer et si on voulu savoir si j'avais des questions à leur poser egalement voila voila

Recruiters were friendly and clear about what's needed for the interview process. The initial stages were fast. I had a technical screener with a technical manager that was an hour long, about 15 mins chat, 40 mins problem-solving, and 5 mins for my questions. They said I wouldn't need to prep, but I got a LeetCode-like problem (greedy/backtracking style). The manager couldn't clearly define the problem's limits and often confused me when guiding me through it or answering my questions. The most confusing part was when I asked how to make the basic problem and edge case clearer. The main issue wasn't what they wanted coded, but their failure to communicate the problem's scope. I solved it, but they didn't seem happy. They tried to break my code by changing a few numbers but failed. I never heard back from them after that.

The recruiter call was good, the recruiter was nice and gave a lot of info about the company. I then had a technical interview. I was expecting a lot of SQL and some Python questions since I'm a data engineer. The interviewer seemed to want to argue or disagree with everything I said about my experience. I stayed professional and answered as nicely as possible. The interviewer didn't accept other ideas and seemed to make fun of the decisions my current company made. Not all companies have the same ideas or funding, so the tech stack will be different. The Python interview wasn't relevant for a data engineer, I could have solved it in SQL, and the interviewer just tried to bring me down the whole time. Sift should know that people like this will only ruin the candidate experience and the company's first impression. Really disappointed with the behavior, not helpful at all.