I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Octopus Energy in Mar 2023
Easy interview
Application
I interviewed at Octopus Energy
Interview
Initial recruiter interview followed by a very similar interview with engineer. Then given a basic API based take home assessment where they asked you to complete a task, unit testing and a bonus task. They failed me for a lack of 'improvements'. Having completed everything they asked for, this annoyed me a little because some improvements I noticed I assumed would be discussed at the follow up interview. In other words, dont very clearly ask people to do A, B, C and D in a timebox of a few hours and then fail them because they didn't do G, H and your imaginary I in their own time.
First stage was a call with the recruiter, second stage was a culture fit interview with 2 engineers, third stage was a take home test to create a Django project in 3 hours. After that, there was a code review with 2 senior engineers to discuss the take home test. Then a call with the manager of the team I would potentially be joining and finally a call with the CTO.
So in total there was 6 stages to the application, all of which were fine, nothing too taxing and everyone I spoke to seemed great and the things they described that I would be working on sounded very interesting.
The thing that ruined this process was the internal recruiter told me a very different salary at the beginning of the process to what was actually offered at the end. This meant it was a complete waste of my time, along with the 4 engineers I spoke to, the manager and the CTO.
This was very disappointing as the company and the people seemed great, but the difference between the advertised salary and what was actually offered meant I had to decline the offer, having wasted 8 weeks going through the process.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
If you had more time on the code test, what would be the next priority for you to work on?
The interview process was clear, rapid, and flexible. Not to mention the nice people I've met during the interviews. Being able to talk to founders in early interviews made me
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Questions focused on real-life scenarios, knowledge of concepts