I applied online. I interviewed at Wayfair in Nov 2021
Interview
Met with Hiring Recruiter
Interviewed with lead architect who was clearly not a software guy but more of a devops guy - and he interviewed me like I was applying for a devops role.
Questions didn't apply to ml engineer at all. One question was a vocabulary test and didn't align to industry common terms.
System design had nothing to do with a real world scenario
Code question was a difficult medium on leetcode.
In my opinion, they are trying to be something they are not. To get through the interview process one would need to study just like a FAANG interview, with a focus on devops...Except if one was going to prepare that hard wouldn't they go work at a FAANG company? Seems unrealistic to me, but power to them for trying to be elite.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a system that mines logs for billions of emails that didn't go out when the issue was sparatic
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Wayfair in Aug 2021
Interview
It started when the company recruiter reached out to me through LinkedIn for a Senior ML/manager position. I spoke with them - was very helpful. They passed my resume to the internal recruiter representing the team, then things went downhill. I had a 30-min initial call with them, nothing out of ordinary. I asked her I need to talk to the Hiring Manager as they didn't know much about the role. Next step 30 min conversation with the HM on Google Meet- total waste of time, as I am(and the HM figured it out) knew more about the ML space and I knew they would not proceed, I really didn't care about that, but out of courtesy I sent an email a few days later asking for feedback and got no response.
I do not care that they rejected me(I reject them too, their ML strategy is not mature, at least for the team I interviewed with), but I would think it is a professional courtesy and HR's job to at least respond. This is another sign of poor culture at the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
HM Interview: No questions, sat there listening to the HM talk about their ML strategy for 30 mins.
HR Interview: I was told I would need to present a business use case.
