Failed a startup interview - learnings?
Recently I had an oppurtunity with a strong startup (~10 people, innovative AI idea, but strong profits).
They paid all costs to fly me out so I can work with them for a few days to see if it's a match.
The problem was that when we met, the founders asked me what project I would like to implement in their system within these few days. I wasn't prepared to propose my own idea for how to extend their platform as I didn't know how they build things, and I wasn't sure if I can commit to completing a project in this short amount of times. I asked a few questions, and eventually the conversation landed on an idea I was excited about but I had no idea how to practically implement.
Moreover, their codebase was a mess (files with 10k+ lines, zero comments) and it was a weekend so I couldn't get much help from the engineers.
I've delivered a partial demo on the project, but ultimately wasn't able to ship the whole thing and did not receive an offer. I discussed with the CEO after and he mentioned that he liked my cultural fit, and he also thinks this project was too difficult, but he just doesn't see a good role where I fit currently.
I am trying to learn from this experience and what I could improve, and wanted to get any suggestions in this forum.
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Discussion
(4 comments)- 2
4 months agoHelpful TarodactylTaro CommunityCan you provide more context on the discussion surrounding what you were going to build? What did the startup/interviewers think of your proposed project? Did you write any documentation or scope out the project properly? How did you communicate expectations to relevant stakeholders? From how you described it, I get the impression that you guys had a 15-30 minute conversation about what you want to work on, then you proposed and idea and went on with it.
I feel like there are two lessons. First, don’t bite off more than you can chew. If you knew you had no idea how to implement something, then you should’ve brought it up first. Even the CEO agreed that the project was too hard, so wasn’t it stupid to not say anything before diving in? Second, it seems to me that there wasn’t much communication or planning. If you had talked more to your teammates and get their thoughts, then that would’ve aligned expectations and you would’ve known what you needed to get done within the next few days.
Also, seems to me like you had to implement and integrate something. If you only had a few days, then you basically shot yourself in the foot right there: it takes a month to familiarize yourself with a codebase, so what makes you think you can do that AND integrate your code within a few days? I probably would’ve chosen something like refactoring or reducing tech debt. While hindsight is 20/20, maybe you could’ve asked to see what the codebase looked like, then figure out what the lowest hanging fruit is. This way you can identify the segments of code that are easiest to modify/integrate and demonstrate impact.
To be honest, though, the interview seems pretty unfair and disorganized. They didn’t have a plan a project for you and they didn’t take care of you enough. Even though there are lessons to be learned I wouldn’t feel too bad about it, since this final stage has so much noise and variance.
- 1
4 months agoSoftware Engineer II [OP]Taro CommunityHey, for sure! So I think my phrasing of a "project" is a bit miss-leading, a "feature" may be the better term here.
In terms of teammates, unfortunately, the last 2 days, I was working on a weekend, and the experienced engineers were not around, I tried reaching out but didn't get a response.
It was like a 15 min conversation.
- they asked me what I wanna build while I am here
- I didn't have a clear idea. I flipped the question.
- They gave me 3 ideas. I was aware of one and knew it'd be hard (but in hindsight it was easier than what I ended up doing), can't remember the 2nd now, and third was some basic front-end work that I wasn't too interested in and didn't know much about.
- I wasn't sure, asked follow-up on how the system currently works
- They gave me an overview of the system and asked which part I am interested in
- I asked about how "X feature" fits into the system.
- They said "X feature" wasn't fully implemented yet, and asked me if I wanna implement it
- I said yes, and we discussed the high-level design
However I went with 1 interpretation of the feature, and later he informed he wants me to implement it in a different more complex/performant way (maybe I should've pushed back here?)
- 24 months agoHelpful TarodactylTaro Community
Got it. I think you did shoot yourself in the foot by proposing to implement a feature, but the more you talk about it, the more I feel like this interview was unfair. Why would they expect an interviewee to work on a weekend when their engineers don’t? Personally, I don’t think you were being set up to succeed, but maybe someone with more startup experience can elaborate. Regardless of the interview process, I still think there are still things you can take away from this experience that you can apply to the workplace.
The major reason for failure is a lack of communication, specifically, not drilling into details and not bringing in relevant stakeholders into the loop. From your recounts, it seems that there were a lot of misalignments in expectations both from the engineers and from the CEO. For example, the CEO said your task was too hard, the engineers wanted to implement your feature differently, etc. if you had specified what exactly you’ll get done and spent more time involving various stakeholders, I think that would’ve helped scope down the problem to something reasonable.
Even from this short conversation, I can sort of tell that you likely didn’t sweat the details - I had to ask you more info on what happened in the conversation. When you elaborated and when you mentioned about the high level design, now I want to know more about what that conversation entailed - did you talk about class hierarchy? System design? Algorithms? What follow-ups where there after the design? Was there a design doc or a meeting to go through it with other engineers? You mentioned that this was a multi-day thing and you were working on a weekend - how long was this onsite? There were a lot of details that would’ve helped me understand the situation as opposed to going back and forth.
So in summary, I think the lesson is that the devils are in the details. It seems to me that you didn’t have a thorough enough discussion with the engineers about where you’ll make changes to the code, how the code will be implemented, etc. If you encounter a situation like this, drill down the details down to the implementation level and over communicate as opposed to under communicate. That way, everyone knows what’s happening.
Alex and Rahul - feel free to add anything.
- 1
4 months agoTech Lead @ Robinhood, Meta, Course HeroAs I talk about in my job searching course, it's always good to try to learn from every interview, especially the failures. I think the main learning you can get here is that you could improve on scoping out work items in unfamiliar territory. This is a skill that takes a while to sharpen, and a lot of it really does just come from time (more time as an engineer = more natural intuition).
That being said, this interview just seemed like kind of a mess:
- You had to interview on a weekend. This is already a red flag, but it's an even bigger red flag as they didn't have core engineers also working over the weekend to give you feedback
- The interview just wasn't structured at all. They just fly you in and hope you produce magic on the spot?
- The codebase is terrible. Having files with 10k+ LOC as a 10-person startup is frankly sort of embarrassing. The quality bar is lower for startups compared to something like FAANG, but it's not that much lower
Startups are known for having really messy, ad-hoc interviews given their more chaotic nature, but even among startups, I feel like this interview process was especially bad.
Anyways, I wouldn't feel too bad on missing out on this company, and I hope you had a good experience being flown out. Best of luck with future interviews!
