In a nutshell: super responsive, great team, but a long process and disappointing outcome
It starts with a phone screen from their recruiting partner "The Sourcery". Friends but very cutthroat, firing question after question without trying to get to know you. Ex. "How many years of X"
Then came a challenge, which was expected. The challenge itself was pretty straight forward but a little complex and time consuming for this type of assessment. I didn't actually have enough time to complete the whole challenge but got most of it, and the team was fairly happy with the results.
After that we scheduled a 30 minute chat with the Engineering Project Manger and that was really positive. The EPM then introduced me to the Director of Engineering and we had a 30 minute chat as well which also went very well.
I actually thought that was it in terms of interviews, but was informed that we will be doing a 3 hour interview marathon with 5 members. This was suppose to be the equivalent of the in-office interview. The EPM and DOE were two of the members so it was a little repetitive but gave us a chance to discuss things we didn’t get to discuss the first time around. It was also less about them selling the company and the work they do and more about me and how I would fit. I also spoke to a designer, who frankly just started and was not at all interested in the interview (he was chatting on his phone and just asked questions to have me talk). The other two members were senior engineers, with them asking questions that go back to fundamentals of CS. I felt it went well but also a little irrelevant, given my background and experience.
The whole process may have been long in terms of how many conversations we had but it was one of the best interview processes I went through. We managed to do all this in under 1 week. Though I would advice 3DR to cut out “The Sourcery” and avoid redundant chats.
I didn’t get a chance to join the team though I was super excited to. This was one of the few positions that tied my experience in aerospace with my app development. I also felt that I connected with the team and though 3DR was having a hard time in the past, I felt the team was on the right track now and that my experience could really be beneficial in a variety of roles, not just app development.
Disappointing outcome but good luck to the team and the company.