I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Aignostics (Berlin) in Jun 2023
Interview
The first interview was lovely, it consisted of short company introduction and a technical screening. The atmosphere was great, I really liked it. The second interview was a bit..weird, unsettling even. People interviewing me didn't actually know which position I have applied to..During the first interview, I got told that I will get a deeper introduction of what the company does, followed by live coding session. However, there wasn't any thorough introduction in what is actually happening in the company or the team, instead I almost instantly got asked a bunch of questions. The tone of one interviewer was quite weird and he was chuckling throuought the whole process which prevented me from feeling confortable and being able to think straight. I was pretty disappointed by the atmosphere and absolutely did not expect that, and I felt really frustrated and couldn't really concentrate on the task. The overall impression I had from the interview was somewhat bittersweet. The assignment itself, however, was not difficult, but fairly simple. Wouldn't say I did my best, but considering the atmosphere of this interview it was quite difficult to relax and think about the problem.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
During technical screening: function refactoring, theoretical Python questions During live coding session: write a function with a certain output, name its time complexity, suggest how to make it more efficient
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Aignostics (Berlin) in Jul 2023
Interview
1. Video call with Data Engineer, he was great to talk with and motivating. Answered some Python related questions. Fixed some code exercise. 2. Video call with to Software Engineers where I had to speak about Hash Maps from a theoretical perspective. Followed by a live coding exercise that had to be optimised. It was not as great as first interview but went ok. 3. A system design interview with 2 Senior Software Engineers. This stage was not nice. I tried to focus continuously thinking out loud and trying to reason a design that I was not particularly familiar with but still tried my best, while one of the interviewers was yawning and understanding the opposite of what I was saying in several occasions making me feel like I was in the wrong path and confusing me. I eventually received an email after 2 weeks of interviews and many hours of preparation saying they continued with another candidate. Until here, OK. The problem comes when I asked for feedback to continue improving and I was totally ghosted. This is unacceptable when you have spent 5h hours in interview calls and spent several days preparing. Its alright to give this answer if you are not passing the screening interview but for god's sake if someone does not pass the design interview, the bare minimum is to give them feedback. This shows what kind of company they are. great mission but poor ethics.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Python and systems basic questions, followed by a live coding exercise to fix some bug. 2. CS theoretical questions (hash maps/tables) and a live coding exercise where you need to understand big O notation. 3. System design interview where you need to solve a challenge they had in the past related to the way they provide a seamless image experience. Similar to google maps image tiling...
