Symbotic Interview Questions
& Process

I went through four virtual interviews and then one on-site interview. We talked about my past work, I did a medium-difficulty coding challenge, and some design/debugging problems. It all went well and they said they wanted to offer me a job. We started talking about compensation, but before they could send an offer, they needed to get "approval" for it. I haven't heard anything in three months since the recruiter last emailed about the "approval" status. I found another job and took it. The people on the team were nice and seemed competent, but the company's process felt really disorganized, so I'm glad I dodged that bullet. The pay seemed okay, but I'd tell others to probably avoid this place.

This entire interview process was a disorganized mess, honestly. I went through three rounds of interviews, and then after waiting for three months for a decision, they just ghosted me. It's super disappointing, especially after spending a whole month prepping, that they couldn't even send a simple message like, "We're not moving forward" or "This is taking longer than expected." I got no response to my emails for three months, nothing at all. There were three interview stages with different people. The first was a technical interview where I got asked about five or six questions on control systems, PLCs, and automation. The next two were behavioral, though the last one was a bit more technical.

I had an initial phone screen with a recruiter that went well. Then I was invited to another interview with an engineer. The interview had to be rescheduled three times because the interviewer never showed up. On the fourth attempt, he finally showed up. He questioned me about my resume and we talked about my experiences and projects. He asked me basic system design questions and asked me about to find the nth Fibonacci number verbally. I thought it went well but I was surprised to get rejected after that interview.

A recruiter reached out about a role at Symbotic. Initially, I didn't respond because I'm not located in MA, but after being contacted again, I inquired about remote possibilities. Learning they were open to remote candidates, I agreed to interview, finding the product compelling. I was informed early on that the position would involve 10-25% travel, and I indicated I could manage the lower end of that range. The lack of precise travel details became a significant concern. The interview process itself was positive. Following the initial recruiter conversation, I underwent a challenging yet enjoyable technical interview. This included a 'leetcode' style question that took about 40 minutes, along with discussions about the company, its products, and the role. After passing this initial stage, I proceeded to a second round spread over two days. The first half of the second round comprised four interviews, and the second half had three. The first half of the second round went smoothly and felt more general than technical. However, the first interviewer for this round was unexpectedly absent, and I was only informed at the start, necessitating a call to the recruiter who arranged for another interviewer to join after about 20 minutes. The final day of interviews shifted back to a more technical focus, featuring longer coding challenges. Ultimately, I received a job offer. Although the interview schedule listed me for Principal SWE, the offer was for Senior SWE. The compensation was very competitive. I attempted to get clearer information on the travel requirements but only received the vague "between 10 and 25%" answer. I also asked about my direct manager, assuming it would be the manager from the interview team, but was told it would be a vice president. For a company of this size, a VP directly managing a Senior SWE is unusual, leading me to suspect they were unsure of the reporting structure at that time, which raised a red flag.