Ventera Interview Questions
& Process

After submitting my resume at my university's fall career fair, I was contacted by Ventera. They quickly invited me for an interview, which was a really unique experience. About two weeks after they first reached out, I drove to their main offices in Reston, VA for an on-site interview. I wish they had covered housing or travel since I had to drive a good distance, but the interview experience itself made it worthwhile. The day kicked off at 9:00 am with the HR manager giving a presentation about the company's mission, culture, and the different job opportunities available. She was really detailed about the perks for the positions. There were three other college candidates with me, and they were holding interviews on multiple days like this. After the presentation, we each got a small conference room, and four different people rotated in to interview us for 30 minutes each. Three of these interviewers were either senior developers or project managers. The questions were mainly behavioral, asking about past projects, preferred work styles, and general programming knowledge. A really notable part of Ventera's interview process is the chance to meet the CEO, Robert Acosta. He seems like a great guy, and everyone speaks highly of him; talking to him was a real highlight. Following the interviews, we were treated to lunch with two recent college grads who are now employed at Ventera. They were approachable and seemed to have a positive view of the company. The day wrapped up around 2:15 pm.

I applied to Ventera via a recruiter and the whole thing took about 2 weeks. First, I had a quick 15' phone screening with some basic SQL questions. Then, they asked me to come to their office in Reston, VA for an in-person interview. The in-person part had four people interviewing me individually for about half an hour each, so it took around two hours total. Three were technical folks, and one was from HR_PM. I felt I had a good interview with three of them: two technical interviewers (an Indian guy and an Asian lady) and the HR lady. However, another technical interviewer, also Indian, seemed disorganized. He kept hassling me and interrupting me when I tried to explain things, almost like he had someone else in mind for the job. It felt like he didn't want to hear my answers but preferred to argue. Overall, it seemed a bit unorganized, and they didn't really seem to know how to assess a strong candidate's skills and experience.

I applied through a staffing firm and had a phone interview with Ventera's HR within a week, which went well. They then asked me to submit written samples of my product backlog. I created a sample and sent it over. A few days after submitting the written samples, I was invited for an in-person onsite interview at their Reston office. There were 4 rounds, each 30 minutes long. I was interviewed by the VP of UX/UI, the Agile Delivery lead (who was recently hired), a Sr. Product Owner, and the CEO. I really enjoyed the interviews with the UX/UI lead, Agile lead, and CEO. The only hiccup was with the Sr. Product Owner; although they set the interview date and time in advance, they couldn't make it in person, so HR arranged a webcam interview while they were working from home. To make matters worse, they didn't have their laptop charged and kept rushing me through scenario-based questions because their laptop was about to die. This was quite distracting. How can an interviewer not be prepared when they schedule the meeting? Maybe they were overworked or in back-to-back meetings, but knowing their busy schedule, I'd expect them to have their laptop charger handy, especially when working remotely. Two days later, I received feedback that I wasn't selected.

I reached out to the recruiter, and they got back to me pretty quickly to schedule interviews. I ended up talking to about four different people, a mix of technical and non-technical folks. The CEO did the last interview and asked about the company's position in the industry. Everyone was really nice, gave out business cards, and said I could reach out with any questions.