Zyte Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interviewer was very kind, we started with introductions and then some questions about my work history. Then the technical questions of varying difficulty began. It was a good experience. I felt comfortable the whole time.

First there was a recruiter call, then I got a take-home coding challenge that was supposed to take 8-10 hours. Even though my code worked and met all the requirements, I was rejected with a generic response. I respect their decision and know I can improve, but I would have appreciated constructive feedback for the time I put in. I feel this is disrespectful of my time and effort, and it makes me question how they value their current employees. This kind of hiring practice needs to stop.

My BIG problem with the company is that they made me an offer and then withdrew it after I had already put in my notice at my previous job, citing 'changing business needs.' This happened even though I was in the middle of defining payment methods and the country-specific contract, and after we had already set a start date. While I admit I should have waited to put in my notice until the contract was finalized, their action was extremely unprofessional, especially since they gave no real reason when I asked what the issue was. The other issue with the interview was the excessive wait time; it took three months with periods where they didn't respond at all. The actual interview process had three parts: first, an unpaid test project where I had to build a spider using Scrapy, which took me about 8-10 hours as I was new to the technology. Second, a video interview with a non-technical recruiter. Third, a video conference with two software engineers and a manager. After all that (and more waiting), they extended an offer during another video chat, only to withdraw it later via email.