The interview process consisted of developing a pretty straightforward dynamic page widget.
They had several errata in their ideal solutions. The interviewer did not realize that javascript arrays are sparse, and so they were looking for a quite convoluted and suboptimal "solution" to avoid allocating too much contiguous memory.
They also insisted that iterating over a rectangular (not necessarily square) 2D array required O(n^2) time instead of the O(m*n) time it actually requires.
Other than that, it was pretty standard. The people were friendly and I liked their commitment to DEI
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Name a time when you encountered an issue of discrimination against you or another individual. How did you handle it?
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Caribou in Jan 2022
Interview
After the initial call with the hiring manager, the second round was a two part interview process, split up over two days. The first part was a coding practicum (in TypeScript or Ruby) with two engineers, in a one-hour, pseudo-live coding session. The second was an "Engineering Values" interview with two engineers, which also lasted one hour.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The coding practicum was centered on accessing data from a JSON file, parsing it, and printing specific fields with Node commands. The follow-up question asked to store some data locally, and add CRUD functionality. Pretty straightforward. The "engineering values" questions were typical, asking to describe approach to development/problem solving, experiences working with a team, TDD, agile methods, debugging, specific challenges, failures, etc.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Caribou in Nov 2021
Interview
I interviewed for the software engineer position. When scheduling my interview it was very unprofessional, like getting the candidate's name wrong or scheduling an interview then realizing the person who is interviewing you had no idea that there was an interview at that time. Whoever is considering this company, I recommend to reconsidered. A company that this unprofessional is not going to get you far.
Thank you for sharing your interview experience. We appreciate everyone who interviews with us, and it sounds like we fell short of expectations here. At Caribou, we strive to live up to our value of Get Better Every Day and we'll be working hard to improve the interview experience.
