I applied online. I interviewed at Atlas Informatics (Seattle, WA)
Interview
They have a definite pattern for interview process. Started with a cultural interview, followed by a technical round. Both were done by a panel of at least two interviewers. After this there was an integration day, allowing candidate to work in real project related tasks and interact with engineers more closely
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Started with a simple coding question then was asked to build a system around it. The system was made more complex with multiple follow-ons.
I applied through other source. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Atlas Informatics (Seattle, WA) in Jan 2017
Interview
Email exchange, phone call with recruiter, first informal 1:1 meeting by a data scientist, then formal interview in three phases - corporate culture fit, coding / tech interview on the whiteboard, meeting with CTO / CEO; then integration day.
Overall, the technical team has smarts, but the project seems overly ambitious given the means and the timeline. The company does not have an unfair advantage compared to its competitors - Cortana + OneDrive, Siri + iCloud, Alexa and every personal search engine / document store outta there.
Be prepared for a fair amount of hipster douchery, especially from the recruitment team. The values of the company are painted on the wall at the entrance of the office. Think something as hypocritical and pretentious as Amazon's "Work hard. Have fun. Make History". HR relies on other gimmicks like "having an integration day" and changing where you sit every six months.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
basic code exercise + design / algorithm exercise related to current technical challenges (quite vague)
We're sorry that you had a disappointing experience during your visit at Atlas, our culture and values clearly didn't resonate with you and it sounds like this wouldn't have been a good fit for either side.
The informal meeting with our data scientist is not a standard part of our process. We've been seeking a strong senior contributor to join our data science team, so the recruitment team added this step for certain junior/mid-level candidates who didn't meet that bar on paper. We apologize if there was a mismatch in expectations but we did our best to frame our process intentionally and carefully throughout. Ultimately, we invested extra time to give you the most fair chance to secure a position here and it didn't work out.
We wish you the best in your search.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Atlas Informatics (Seattle, WA) in Nov 2015
Interview
There were multiple phone interviews with the external and internal recruiters, an in-person interview was scheduled. It was scheduled for weeks out due to travel schedules, and then it was cancelled the evening before I was set to go in. Surprised by the lack of professionalism.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is the biggest challenge for growing companies in retaining their start-up culture.