SingleStore Interview Questions
& Process

the interview process started with a recruiter call, who then set up a call with the hiring manager for the next week. the job role scope given by the recruiter and hiring manager were different, but that was accepted. after the hiring manager interview, there was a week of silence. the recruiter then reached out to schedule the next round for the week after. this continued with significant gaps between interviews for 4 rounds. after a few days, they came back for a presentation round, which happened after a two-week gap. although the hiring manager mentioned there might be two more interviews, there were a total of five interviews with weeks in between. the rejection came via a standard email.

The interview process was amateurish and unprofessional. It started with a recruiter call where, beyond a resume review, the questions were unfocused, overly broad, and didn't align with the job's strategic responsibilities. For instance, she asked about commission despite it not being a quota-carrying role and if I "keep up on market trends". I tried to answer as best I could, but she couldn't clarify my clarifying questions. She then scheduled me for a hiring manager meeting the next day. The hiring manager didn't show up at the scheduled time. I emailed the recruiter, hiring manager, and his boss about their absence. The hiring manager emailed later, claiming he was flying and unaware of the meeting. The recruiter apologized and said she'd reschedule. Four hours later, a different recruiter contacted me to fill out a Calendly link. I indicated availability the next day after 12 PM. She stated this didn't work and asked for my potential meeting times. At this point, I emailed the team to withdraw my application. I believe how a company treats a candidate reflects how they treat a customer.

The interview started with a 30-minute Hiring Manager Call where we chatted about my background, why I'm interested in the company, and other related things. Then there was a 60-minute Machine Coding Round, which was a pretty standard React/JavaScript task. I had to build a simple form that needed input validation, would send me to a new URL after submitting, and show errors if something went wrong. After that, I had a 60-minute Technical Discussion with the Team. We talked about how to handle scheduling a client request on the server. I shared my ideas, we discussed different ways to do it, and I wrote some pseudocode to show how it could work. The interviewers were really nice, helpful, and even gave me some hints when I was stuck, making it feel like a team effort. They were all about talking things through openly, which made it a good experience. I managed to finish both technical parts early, so we had some extra time to talk about the company, what they're aiming for, and the problems they're currently facing. Ultimately, I got rejected because they felt I didn't have enough experience.

So we had five interviews. The first one was with HR, just talking about my background and what to expect in the process. Then the second was with the hiring manager, discussing the role and the skills they were looking for. The third interview was with the hiring manager and a future teammate, and this is where we did a live technical challenge and I presented my portfolio. The fourth was just a casual meet-and-greet with the future team. And the last one, the fifth, was with an executive to finalize things. Oh, and HR also talked about compensation at some point.