Thought Machine Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was smooth and comprised three stages: an initial introductory call, a take-home assessment, and a final on-site interview which included three separate parts. The initial call and take-home test were fine. The on-site began with SRE-style questions where a system was presented, and I had to debug it. This was followed by two coding challenges similar to LeetCode medium and medium-hard problems, though not directly from the platform. I think I did well overall but might have missed one of the coding questions. While they didn't specify a strict passing score, I suspect candidates are evaluated relative to each other rather than against a fixed benchmark. The whole process was notably quick and efficient, with prompt communication, but I found it odd to be tested on algorithms for a role where they aren't heavily utilized.

I applied online and after about 3 weeks, maybe 4, I got a message from a recruiter inviting me to a call. In the recruiter call I was asked about my experience and was presented the company and the interview process. I was then scheduled for the next stage, a Take-Home task, which has a timer of 2 days to complete. I completed the task and submitted it, but then I got not response for more than 3 weeks. I followed up, but still no response. Overall this was not a great experience...and I can assume at this point it's some form of reject, in case the task was forgotten about.

The whole thing took about a month and had five interviews in three stages (1:2:2). First, a casual coffee chat with a manager, mostly about my experience and to ask about the company. Then, two technical interviews: a code review (GoLang) and a system design whiteboard thing, both with senior engineers or managers. Lastly, two interviews with managers: one was a case study where they gave me a scenario and I had to say how I'd handle it as a manager, asking about my thinking, what info I'd need, and my decision process. The other was a leadership/behavioral interview. It was a good experience, met lots of people, saw the culture, and the interviewers were nice and helpful. Charles the recruiter was great too!

The interview had 3 parts: first a recruiter chat, then a take-home project, and finally an onsite interview. The onsite had 3 one-hour sessions: 2 were for LeetCode medium problems, and 1 was a discussion about the take-home project code. It was a good experience, the team was nice and professional. I didn't pass the onsite, but got feedback a week later, which was detailed. I have some issues with the feedback though. They said I could code more efficiently, mentioning Python features like enumerate and optimizing list comprehension. I think my code was already efficient, both in time and space, and it's a bit much to expect that level of optimization from a junior role under pressure. But I appreciate the learning chance and will think about their suggestions.