I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Smartsheet (Seattle, WA) in Aug 2019
Interview
This felt like an interrogation
Most of the folks I talked to were fine, and the director I spoke to during the screen was incredibly sweet and collaborative.
But there was a senior developer who gave me one of the worst interview experiences I've ever had. He asked what rails version my past rails apps ran. I told him I couldn't tell him, especially because we dealt with dockerized microservices and I'm more of a business value focused prototyper than a long term maintainer.
I immediately saw fury in his eyes and he spent the next hour asking me rails trivia ("which background scheduling options exist in rails?") that only test your current knowledge and not your ability as a developer to learn and grow.
He asked me a problem about systems design which I answered, and due to my experience knew the pitfalls and gotchas for. When I finished he shrugged and said "Oh not bad, that's a really elegant solution." "But I still don't understand how you don't know the rails versions of your apps."
I've never felt like like folks threw my entire years of experience out for a number before now. I told Smartsheet after telling them I was no longer interested and the recruiter asked me to call and chat and apologized for the trouble, so there's that.
I also admitted to another interviewer I had been given his problem two days ago and learned the optimal solution and he told me to solve it anyways. Do they not believe my resume? Or do they not mind folks who have memorized answers and undervalue growth?
But the fact that a guy like this is interviewing and is a very senior developer makes me wonder, does Smartsheet value thought diversity?
Please avoid Smartsheet at all costs. They do not respect candidates’ time. I was contacted for interviews, completed four rounds, and was explicitly told that an offer would be released. Afterward, they delayed the process, saying they were waiting for other roles to be onboarded together. Eventually, they stopped responding altogether no updates, no feedback, and no replies to follow-ups.
This was an extremely disappointing and unprofessional experience. I would not recommend Smartsheet to anyone.
A recruiter reached out to me followed by an initial 30 min screening call. After that they scheduled a 1hr call with Engineering Manager. 1h of system design round and 1hr of DSA round, both on coderpad.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They concentrate on scaling and questions related to that. For DSA leetcode easy, medium level questions are enough.
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Smartsheet (Bellevue, WA) in Jul 2025
Interview
Typical HR screener, then technical interview. I solved everything the interviewer asked for but maybe they had too many qualified candidates so I got the rejection the next day. Overall a waste of time.