I applied online. I interviewed at Busuu (London, England) in Jan 2026
Interview
First stage with HR interviewer, seems they're now using some type of AI to transcribe everything that is being talked about without notifying the interviewee in advance, maybe brighthire or similar (you can find e.g. on reddit some examples of how people found such cases).
The software used seems to generate questions on the go as you talk about your experience, sometimes those are very long technical questions without the interviewer knowing anything about them, they just read what the AI software is telling them. There are even 3+ long questions in one .. during a first stage HR interview nonetheless, you should realise that something is not right, no pauses between the questions, just using a lot of "then".
You can see it on their face when you explain the answer that they have no clue what it is about, but they rush to the next question the AI gave them... can't really blame them.. since AI takes notes, makes up questions.. all they have to do is stare at the screen and read.
Since they don't mention the use case of their AI, you can realise you're likely being used for training purposes without actually leading to any hiring, "unless" maybe you tick all their AI boxes? Most likely the AI will rank you based on the answers at the end, pretty much all tracking software does that in some way. Very deceiving the least to say.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Can you tell me a time where you were responsible for defining a technical strategy that is new for a cluster, something that maybe will improve things on a little bit of the long-term and then when you describe that can you tell me how did you identify the need to change to make that change and the options you've considered, then how did you convince the stakeholders to take it on board?
Can you walk me through both designing and operating a critical service on a cluster that handles maybe, unpredictable traffic spikes, how would you architect from scratch to be resilient, so what would you do at the beginning, but then also if that life service suddenly maybe let's say face ten times the load, what would be the immediate response then?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Busuu (London, England) in Mar 2017
Interview
Had a good chat with a HR lady who ensured me that Busuu cares about diversity, and sent me a job spec that was sweet and said:
"Not ticking every box or think you’ve got that unique set of skills we haven’t realised we need? Get in touch anyway; we’re always looking to add great people! There are lots of indications that some people only apply to roles when they meet all the qualifications for a role, however we don’t believe that ticking off a list of skills is the only thing that makes a great candidate."
Although I did the task quite easily I could not help but show my dislike for these tests, which are to catch you out. I was later told I did not have the right attitude - even though they did not follow their own process of asking questions and look at the candidate i.e. me as a whole not just one that solves one trick technical task
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was reassured that this is for a senior role. Yet apparently there was literally a 1 step Linux 'technical task' where I was told to SSH in to a server, login as a user which was broken (the shell had changed), then fix the log directory for nginx and flush the ip table that blocked outgoing calls.
