Process-wise: 1) Behavioral phone screen, 2) coding interview over video chat, 3) 3ish hour project (prep at home, finish on-site alongside engineering team), 4) on-site behavioral discussions Compared to other interviews I took: - No tricks/gotchas. - Plenty of opportunity to show off what I was good at using tools I was comfortable with; this differed from other interviews where I had to come up on a very specific topic, or was constrained to a specific language, or had to go through the details of a particular math problem that the interviewer happened to be working on at the time. - Better communication from Picnic about what they were looking for and what they valued. This contrasted with other interviews I had where the expectations were a total black-box (and my communication with the company made the process more cryptic if anything). The Picnic interview process was totally game-free. - The post-interview follow up was by-far the most professional I encountered anywhere -- prompt, clear communication, a willingness to answer my questions or find others who could. More than anything else, it was the follow up that grabbed me.

Hiring manager reached out on LinkedIn. Good chat, prompt follow up from the recruiter. Things went downhill from there. First, the onsite was scheduled for 7 days after the screen. It was 4 panels back to back - including a number of the senior leadership team. Lots of prep work to present a technical project I'd worked on. The other technical interviews were confounded by their overwrought Battleship implementation, which was different from the asks in each of the other sessions - by enough that trying to understand the difference between what was being asked and what was given for the tech screen was a major stumbling block. The first round apparently had some follow up flags, so while I waited several days for a reply expecting a yes/no decision, apparently they'd "forgotten" to schedule me with a product manager and the CTO. A surprise round of interviews, no matter how it's framed, is not a good candidate experience. Even after all that, I didn't get an offer. Evidently I did not do enough to make up for whatever flags they found the first time. Feedback for the team: if the answer isn't yes, it's no, and asking candidates for more time when you think it might be a no is a waste of everyones' time. Time mismanagement was evident from the 3-6 people present in each of my sessions. Lastly, they asked me to prep references a week before rejecting me. As though it's not embarrassing enough to be laid off, now I'm embarrassed among the colleagues I told to expect to be contacted. I would describe my experience as disorganized and discourteous of my time. I spent a lot of time waiting with no indication of when I'd hear back. They were friendly enough, but a successful work environment is not what I perceived during my time interviewing here.