I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Xogene (New York, NY) in Dec 2025
Interview
I had an HR screening and a take-home assignment, then three follow-up interview stages. The take-home assignment was just fixing a slide deck. The first interview stage was a case study with people from the engineering and project teams. The second interview stage was a standard interview with a VP and two software developers.
The third interview stage was with the founder. This is where I had a horrible interview experience. I was working with a recruiter and their HR throughout this process, and before my interview with the founder, I was called by someone from the recruiting firm who knew the founder. This call was last-minute and on a weekend, and it was tips for how to handle the founder, which was an immediate red flag. I've gone through many interview processes and I have never had to have a pre-call to prep an interview with a higher up/founder to make sure I say the right things. Then, I had the actual interview with the founder, and it seemed like he wrote me off from the very start. He was not engaged at all from the very beginning. I started with my typical 30-second pitch, then he proceeded to ask me a question that I already answered during this 30-second pitch.
I did not get the offer and the reason that I was told was because the founder thought I was immature for talking about my sorority, when I only mentioned my sorority once when he asked me what made me want to go into PM as a recent graduate, and I said how I was in a sorority where I held leadership positions that resembled PM.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
One question/series of questions that I thought was interesting during my second stage of interviews with the software development team was a lightning round where they asked me the meaning of certain SLDC/Scrum terminology.