I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at CLeo in Jun 2023
Interview
Cleo as a company has got it all backwards in how to conduct an interview. The first and foremost thing that should be a match is the skillset and technical ability. What Cleo instead focuses on is the culture. This reflects in their product as well, which looks cool and feel cool, but doesn't actually give any value to the end user. The interview process as a whole should not be about exact match with engineering principles, rather it should be about what someone can bring to the table that Cleo can learn as well. In regards to the Chat at Cleo, I actually pointed out some nifty things which could have made the whole AI a lot better than it currently is. In this era of LLM driven world, it just doesn’t cut it. I hoped that this would have been a driving factor in getting me to the next round but I guess change is just labelled as “passion” in Cleo. Overall, I am a little pissed and annoyed with the team for rejecting for very stupid reasons related to Engineering Principles. In hindsinght, it's better to avoid this company where everyone wants to sound cool but doesn't actually want to build something of substance.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Be prepared to discuss a recent project, or projects, you have worked on and the technical details / impact / challenges of that e.g. what you contributed, tech choices, tech complexity, user impact etc There will likely be questions around measuring effectiveness of the things you have worked on (i.e. wanting to align to our data-driven approach, but critically, focused around measuring the user impact rather than just delivery or developer experience). Creative mindset and thought of the user experience is something that we really look for, particularly as we are more of a creative/product focused environment, so have a think about pieces of work that you are proud of that showcase a passion / interest in the user focus. Our engineering team love to be reflective - it would be worthwhile having a think about challenges you have faced / failures you have experienced in your working career and the reasoning behind that, plus more importantly how you have gone about trying to rectify them.