I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Shelf Engine in Aug 2021
Interview
I was reached out to by a recruiter. Then, I had a call with a technical recruiter where the explained more details of the position, technical expectations, and potential salary details.
Then, there was a first round technical screen. I was asked about my previous positions, some basic engineering questions about SQL and design, and then a fairly easy programming question.
I passed the first round interview successfully. At this point I was asked to provide references from my previous positions. There where then 4 more second round interviews with their team. Three were technical in nature and followed the same pattern as the first technical screen with maybe slightly harder programming questions. Then, there was a shorter, more culture focused interview with a PM.
They had sent me a short document outlining how their system works before the second round of interviews and asked that I study before hand. They did not ask me a single question about this document during the second round.
A few days after the second round of interviews, they rejected me. They said that I did not display enough ability to handle ambiguity.
All in all, the people were very nice and pleasant to talk to and the interviews were fairly easy. However, their reason for passing up on me was unsatisfactory because they never asked me anything related to their reason for passing. It felt like I had been interviewed to meet a quota.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What is the difference between normal/left/right joins?
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Shelf Engine in Dec 2021
Interview
I applied online and got a quick response from the recruiter asking for a phone conversation. I set up a phone screen and quickly got a confirmation. Phone screen went fine, he requested I set up a technical screen "this week if possible" (it was Wednesday afternoon already). I wasn't able to that week but did the following week, and it seemed to go fine. Didn't hear back from the recruiting team over the holidays, or when I sent a follow up email to hear back. Very unprofessional to ghost a candidate like this.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Shelf Engine in Nov 2021
Interview
Phone call initial screening
Technical question interview with engineer
Seems they have no experienced people was stated to me and looking to gain that. Why are you doing whiteboard exercises then?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Whiteboard exercise about bucketing inputs on coderpad. Not focused
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Shelf Engine (Seattle, WA) in Oct 2021
Interview
Process took about 3 weeks.
First there was the typical phone recruiter call, just talked about what I'm looking for in the job and such. Next was a technical screening with a software engineer. Very basic question, return if a string is a valid UPC number. 1 hour.
Got invited for the virtual rounds next, typical 4 hour panel. First interview was with a project manager and was only behavioral based. The rest were half behavioral and then technical. The technical problems were easy enough, no need to study leetcode (easier than Easy rated problems). One of the technical portions expanded on the valid upc question from earlier and was some collaboration there, genuinely a good interview experience that round.
Then invited for 30 minutes interview a few days later with the head of engineering. Behavioral questions but got rejected after this for unknown reason.
A standard experience
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Given an array of stock prices, find the max profit you can make from one transaction.
2. Alteration on the valid UPC problem
3. I forgot, but some other basic linear algorithm.
Software Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Shelf Engine with 2.6 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 29% positive. To compare, the company-average is 46.1% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Software Engineer roles take an average of 19 days to get hired, when considering 7 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Shelf Engine overall takes an average of 24 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Shelf Engine as a Software Engineer according to 7 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 32%
One on one interview: 26%
Presentation: 16%
Skills test: 11%
Group panel interview: 5%
Personality test: 5%
Drug test: 5%
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