I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at The Washington Post (Washington, DC) in Apr 2024
Interview
Interview structure was a recruiter call, followed by technical screening with practitioners, followed by a 3-hour final round. Final round consisted of a coding interview, machine learning discussion, and behavioral interview with hiring manager. Form letter rejection with no feedback.
It was a bizarre experience as I was essentially mocked by the hiring manager for misunderstanding a small technical detail. They also seemed very disinterested, provided sarcastic responses to questions, and ended the interview early. At no point did I misrepresent my experience level, so it was a little upsetting to be treated this way after spending a lot of time studying for the interviews. The rest of the team was generally pleasant and supportive.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
ML theory, NLP algorithm coding from scratch, project based discussion w/ follow up questions
I applied online. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at The Washington Post
Interview
Really bad experience. The first two rounds went well. Then, I interviewed with the hiring manager. He seemed to be not interested in me at the very first beginning. He didn’t ask anything about my experiences or my background. He only asked me two cases and one technical question. Then he ended the interview. At this time, only half of the scheduled interview time had passed. Then, my scheduled next round of interview was also canceled.
It’s totally fine if he thought I’m not a good fit or I didn’t meet his needs, that he did not want to hire me. But this action is very disrespectful. I didn’t brag in my resume. If you want someone very experienced in some field, please be more careful in selecting candidates. Your time is very precious. Mine is, too. I spent at least one day preparing for the interview. Not only because I value this opportunity, but also because I want to learn something from the experience. For now, I feel it’s a total waste of time. I didn’t learn anything but got very upset from this experience.
