Samsara's recruiting people were very nice and friendly. The screening interview was a good dialogue between people. The process moved along at a good pace.
The problem was their 1 on 1 technical phone interview. The interview was a 45 min interview, but the interviewer was late by 15 min. He apologized and assured me that I will get the full time to answer the questions. I wasn't sure if I was supposed to be grateful? That wasn't what concerned me.
The interviewer also seemed very inexperienced with the interview process. He didn't understand how to use the interview coding tool we collaborated through and didn't know how to call me though it, even when I suggested it would be easier to use my headset on my computer instead of holding the phone in my hand. This happened even though the recruiter told me what tool they would be using and how they will be using it. I ended up coding with one hand for some of the time, and then awkwardly holding my phone between my shoulder and ear for the rest.
The questions themselves were not difficult. Due to the interviewer's inexperience he wanted to overly explain the problems, often interrupting my thought process. To be very fair, he was just trying be nice and was eager to help. But because we didn't know how to use the tool very well, it was hard to debug code.
At the end, I ended up running out of time. I wasn't sure how many more sections there were, but he said I had reached the end (though I suspected I did not).
To be fair to the interviewer, he seemed nice and was eager to help, but he clearly didn't have the expertise to interview people. He wasn't accustomed to thinking patterns that differed from the ones he was used to, and so could not anticipate where to help and where not to help.
As expected, I did not receive an offer, which was probably for the best for me. My advice is that if they want to hire a diverse team, be ready to understand a diverse set of thought patterns. Also, know how to use your interview tools.