VAST Data Interview Questions
& Process

My first interview went great, and I was then scheduled for a technical interview which also seemed to go well. They gave me specific study directions for my next technical interview, focusing on low-level packet analysis and the internal workings of the NFS protocol. However, after preparing thoroughly, I was ghosted; my emails received no response, and I never got the second technical interview. It was a very unprofessional and bad experience, though I suppose this is becoming more common these days. Their poor etiquette and lack of consideration for interviewees' time were evident.

This was supposed to be a screening call, but it turned into a session of nitpicking. The interviewer focused on a couple of specific words I used about technical writing and disregarded everything else I said and the context, to frame me as not a good fit, even though I have all the experience they wanted. She was suspicious and referred to my experiences as 'stints', which is disrespectful, especially given the industry's instability. I've been laid off multiple times from jobs I loved. She even asked me to explain in detail what happened in 2020? All experience is valuable, and considering your company lacks a clear plan for the position after the initial project, that's more of a red flag for ME. Companies act like they don't understand there's no loyalty to employees anymore. Anyway, I probably dodged a bullet, so it is what it is. The positive thing is they rejected me the next day.

The interview process started with a 10-minute casual HR phone chat. Then, there were two technical rounds: the first was 2 hours long, covering general QA and automation concepts, and the second was 2.5 hours, with more in-depth and challenging questions. Finally, there was a non-technical meeting with the Chief R&D. A few red flags included repeated mentions of long working hours, poor work-life balance, and very tight schedules in every interview. Also, it took 4 weeks to get a response after the final round. The only pro was getting prepared for future interviews; the cons were pretty much everything else.

First, there was a quick call with HR. Then, I had a 2-hour Zoom interview with two team members. About 1.5 hours of this was spent asking about my background and experience – things like challenges I've faced, times I succeeded, bugs I've encountered (both ones I caused and ones I didn't), technologies I found enjoyable and the reasons why, and comparisons between different databases I've used. The remaining half hour was dedicated to discussing the company, the teams, and the specific role. Honestly, at no point during the interview could anyone clearly explain what the role actually involved. I later realized this was likely because they had multiple open positions with varying requirements, and they weren't entirely sure what was needed for each. The interviewers themselves were really nice and pleasant to talk to. Finally, I had a 1-hour in-office interview with the group leader. For the first 15 minutes, they asked about my experience and showed me some of their products and features. The next 45 minutes involved a short coding task. The whole interview felt a bit unorganized and not really planned out.