I applied online. I interviewed at Zelus Analytics
Interview
Everyone I spoke to in interviewing was gracious and engaged, which made for an interesting interview process. However, the process was way too long: two rounds of asynchronous interview via Slack, an assignment to complete that took about 6 hours, a follow-up meeting to discuss the assignment, a meeting with a team lead to discuss the remainder of the interview process, a presentation of previous work with Q&A, my references being contacted, all culminating in no offer. It was quite confusing at the time, and I would have given a negative overall rating if the people themselves hadn't been pleasant. As it is, they seem well-meaning but should streamline their application pipeline or offer remuneration, because it wastes a lot of applicant time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What do you do if you don't understand something and no team member is available to help?
I applied online. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Zelus Analytics in Jul 2023
Interview
Basically the same in this startup for all the roles. An async written Slack interview replaced the typical phone screen in order to learn the written capacity. Then came a short session with the contractor recruiter to discuss the logistics. Later 2 technical calls came simultaneously: one was in a group which suggested you to present something in a slide in front of the director, lead product manager and a senior; later, a code review on the take-home assignment (it was assigned right after the call with the recruiter). The third was said to include 2-3 talks with some members from the management though I got only one more technical talk with the senior that I met in the previous round. I got the request to do referral check soon the second business day after the 1-on-1 call. But it didn't guarantee an official offer.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Some detailed questions towards the presentation I brought, and the code review was more likely to depend on what the interviewer wanted to know. He asked me which function I wrote is the one I wanted to walk him through. I felt the 1-on-1 call was just an extension of the code review because I met the same guy and he insisted we should go through more about the take-home assignment. He was super interested in implementing unit testing.
It starts with a written Slack interview (which took me a day to write excellently), then a take-home assignment that took me 3-4 days, including analytics+ML model+design+productionizing. Then an interview that includes questions on take-home and some ML based questions. Then comes a presentation round where you present a project which took me a day to prepare. Honestly, it took me a total of more than 6-7 days fulltime to prepare for the process - only to be rejected with a generic email. Everyone i met were nice but very poor communication. One of the worst after-decision experiences.