I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Sound.xyz in Aug 2023
Interview
Lots of red flags with this company. The founder speaks extremely fast and is an odd cat all around. I can't imagine anyone enjoying working for this person. It was also a huge concern to me that their team made a number of negative comments about other CURRENT team members, I thought they were kidding at first but it became apparent they were not. The business model is risky and not fully fleshed out yet. It's a great idea but it's pie in the sky, not going to happen. In summary, when joining any startup I always look at who the Founder is, what have they done before, are they kind, empathetic etc...this was the biggest red flag for me. 1) Spoke to external recruiter 2) Met with Founder over video call 3) Met with another team member to do deep dive on resume 4) Coding + Design challenges
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Asked standard stuff, what am I looking for in a new role, why Sound, asked about prior roles and projects I led etc
Regular interview process:
- Meet with a cofounder (it's a small company there are no recruiters)
- Meet with someone to talk about past experience
- Coding exercise (leetcode)
- Design System
My main issue is that they ghost you the second they are no longer interested. I tried to reach out but never heard back. I talked to a few other people I personally know who have also interviewed there, and they also *all* got ghosted.
It doesn't cost anything to send a rejection email, especially when someone reaches out. The lack of respect is concerning for such a small company.
I don't recommend this company as they don't seem to care about humans. They are a crypto app that joined the 2021 NFT hype train and they might get into money trouble at some point soon. A lot of companies that joined the NFT train are no longer around. Based on my experience, I would not trust Sound to do right by their people once they start having money trouble.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
System design: Design a chat app (with a focus on API routes and database schema).
Coding: leetcode, targeting the most optimized solution.
