I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Rula (Chicago, IL) in Apr 2025
Interview
I went two rounds at Rula: HR screen, then hiring manager interview. I enjoyed the professionalism and responsiveness of HR. They followed up in a timely manner, and were clean on what to expect. The hiring manager interview was less professional. Months later, this interview experience stands out as unpleasant. The interviewer asked one question, then conducted the "product sense" interview. She sat like a disengaged, bored magistrate while I worked through the exercise. My strength is in connecting with others, and I didn't have the opportunity to do this, given the scenario. For other interviewees, I recommend practicing the exercise with others. Past experience won't matter much in landing a product role at Rula. In fact, it may hurt you. My perception is that Rula will favor candidates who have well-rehearsed, well-practiced interview skills over candidates who have real world experience. Oh, and it won't if you're young and have PE or an ivy league school on your resume. A simple reverse engineering on the PM team will validate this. Diversity in hiring isn't happening on the product team at Rula. Looking back, I dodged a bullet.
The first step was a call with a recruiter, who was very friendly and knowledgeable about the company. He didn't get into many specifics about the role and mentioned I would discuss those in more detail during the hiring manager interview. He also said he'd send me an interview guide but never did, and when I followed up he never replied to my email. The hiring manager interview was 45 minutes, during which time we were supposed to intro ourselves, do a hefty live exercise, and leave 5-10 minutes for my questions. This seemed ambitious given the time, and of course we hit the 45 minute mark before finishing the exercise or me asking any questions. So not your typical hiring manager interview -- didn't ask me any questions about myself or my experience other than asking why I want to work at Rula. I followed up with the recruiter early the following week but again no reply. Received a canned rejection email the next day.