Excellent interviews. This is a new position so I think the interview process differed a bit from the norm in the order of interview steps.
Put application in directly with Olark, received an invitation to interview a week later. I applied early on, so I think they were just waiting for more to come in.
First interview was with CEO, Ben. Great guy and we had a really fun conversation about the product and the position. Asked basic qualifying questions about experience and some questions about work style. Spent time explaining the need for the new role. I asked salary questions at this stage.
Second Interview was a take home assignment. Custom project that tested technical skills dealing with webhooks and APIs and then tested communication skills.
Third interview was follow up with Senior Engineer and CX lead. Reviewed homework. Pretty easy -- if you did the work you should be able to talk about it. Very good interview and they couldn't have been nicer. Had some questions about handling inter-team communication and clients.
The People Ops director was out for the rest of that week, but I knew I had done well and got the expected email the first day she was back with an invitation to third interview with head of sales and frontline lead.
Morning of third interview, I received an attractive offer from another company with a deadline for acceptance.
I knew from conversations in my second interview that I would have to pass the third interview that day and then there would be a four hour work-along to make sure I'm a good fit before a decision would be made. I made the decision to withdraw from the interview process and accept the offer in hand.
Feedback:
Pros:
** The People Ops director is honestly one of the most communicative and direct people I've had the pleasure of dealing with.
** Every employee I spoke with seems to actively enjoy their job and were selling me constantly on the benefits of Olark
** The homework was really fun and creative, and would absolutely weed out people not suited for the job
Cons:
** The interview process is very long compared to other modern tech companies. There's nothing wrong with this necessarily, but it should probably be laid out for candidates in the beginning as well as a time-frame. It all goes very fast, but it's a lot of steps involved. I think they're just looking for the PERFECT candidates and I commend them for their low turnover of highly educated people, and this probably has a lot to do with it.
** I would have loved a more defined conversation about salary, as I felt the CEO was in a great position to know an answer to that question. I was feeling very confident with the process and would have maybe rolled the dice with the other offer being willing to extend their deadline if I'd have received clearer answers on this front from Olark.
Overall I'm just nitpicking though, because 10/10 job from an amazing team and I know they're going to find the perfect candidate for this job.