Zymergen Interview Questions
& Process

My interview experience with Zymergen was quite unusual. For all the roles I applied for there, I did get calls from HR, though it seemed like some weren't really interested (maybe they had a quota). I got to speak with a hiring manager for one role and then had a panel interview with the team. The interviews themselves were okay, but I didn't hear anything back from HR or the hiring manager for two months. I felt the HR wasn't very professional or respectful.

I applied online and waited about two weeks. Then a recruiter reached out to see when I was free for a phone interview. We had to reschedule it for the next week because of something personal. I haven't heard back about the results yet, but I have to say, this was the rudest recruiter I've ever encountered. I've interviewed with about 20 companies recently, and she was really unfriendly. Her voice was always loud, and she had a bossy attitude. The interview was supposed to be 30 minutes, but she asked questions really fast. After saying 'how are you', she just jumped straight into a list of questions without any pleasantries, like asking about my daily work, my short-term goals, and my long-term goals. I got an interview guide from the recruiting team beforehand, which seemed more focused on behavior questions, but the interview turned out to be more technical. I gave a general answer about using HPLC and chromatography, and then she asked me to explain more. It seemed like after I provided more details, she didn't understand and got annoyed.

First, there was a screening phone call with both an HR person and the main supervisor/scientist of the section. After that, I had individual zoom interviews scheduled with 4-5 other lab people who had different roles. It felt pretty informal, more like a conversation than a strict interview, which I actually enjoyed. They gave me a format to review beforehand that follows the STAR format.

The entire interview process spanned roughly two months. My application was submitted on September 22, 2020. I received an email about a phone screen on September 28th. On October 8th, I heard back about moving to the next stage. I then set up my hiring manager interview for October 20th. Following that, on October 21st, I was informed I'd advanced again. I then scheduled a two-day interview event for October 28th and 29th. This included giving a presentation to the chemical engineering team and meeting with various individuals from the products team. Finally, I got the offer call on November 16th.