Spectra Logic Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was quite lengthy. It kicked off with an unannounced aptitude test, a 20-minute, 500-question sequence-based puzzle. Following that, there was a brief chat with the hiring manager. Then came a panel interview with six of the direct reports. After that, an HR interview, and then another extensive panel interview with 16 individuals from various departments like engineering, purchasing, contracts, and billing – essentially, anyone I would interact with or support. The final step was a meeting with the VP of the department. I'm relieved I could get through all the interviews in a single day, though it spanned over 7 hours without a lunch break and they only offered one bottle of water.

Applied online then got contacted really fast for a quick ~20min initial phone call. After that, I had a phone interview with the hiring manager, which was scheduled quickly too. They were super responsive and on top of things the whole time, which I really liked. The hiring manager call was about an hour, and it went pretty well. He asked me a lot about my resume projects so he could tell if I could explain technical stuff well when talking. Then I had a ~3 hour on-site technical interview. I thought the questions were fair and the interviewers were nice and respectful. I respect how thorough they are in making sure they hire people with the technical skills they need.

The details of the interview weren't shared beforehand. It was less than an hour, with a manager and an engineer each talking to me for about 30 minutes. The manager did the typical 'get to know you' questions, like strengths and weaknesses. The engineer had some technical tasks. I wish I'd known the focus areas so I could have brushed up on older skills. The job description wasn't helpful either. The tasks themselves were presented kind of poorly and inconsistently, making them hard to prepare for. Some questions could have been clearer about the concept instead of being too specific. The engineer also used terms that weren't standard and got upset when asked to explain. He even got some of his own questions wrong and didn't like being corrected, which was awkward. Most of the material wasn't hard, but the bad presentation made it tough, especially with nerves and time pressure. I didn't get invited back for a second round, and honestly, I was relieved because it didn't seem like my kind of company.

I got a message on LinkedIn and they asked if I was interested. The first call with the recruiter was really good and we talked about my background and experience and what I was looking for. It took two weeks for the hiring manager to get back to me for a phone interview. That interview didn't go well. The manager was late, didn't apologize, and asked super basic questions like textbook definitions. I messed up a couple but did okay on the others. The call quality was bad so I had to ask him to repeat himself a lot and he seemed annoyed. I asked some normal questions about their process, tools, how engineers spend their time, code standards, and documentation. He gave brief answers or said he couldn't share. I wasn't interested anymore because he seemed like a bad manager. A few days later, they told me they were going with other candidates.