Brocade Communications Interview Questions & Reviews

Interview Details – The interview was for a developer position in the switch group. Contacted by internal recruiter. Initial phone screen with the hiring manager. Interview was non-technical, pretty straight forward, simple questions (what I did in my current job, what I know, what I want to do, etc). Was invited for a face-to-face interview at the company site. Interview questions consisted of protocol knowledge, and some c-interview questions (queues, locks, etc), not too difficult ones. As for the members of the team, I did not get a warm feeling from most of them, no "get to know you" talk, hardly any smiles, very dry and non-personal. Did not sense any excitement from them about their job or technology. Maybe because most of them has been there 8+ yrs.

I was told by the hiring manger she/Brocade would get back to me within a few days with a decision. Lets just say, I sent a few emails (to recruiter and hiring manger), left voice mails, finally heard back from them after three weeks. Status - the hiring manger is still looking at other candidates and would get back to me "soon" and thanked me for my patience. Btw, this is week four. :) I think I should take the hint by now. lol.

To recap, I was very disappointed with the whole interview process. Did not get opportunity to get to know member of team on a personal level.

Interview Details – Initial communication was with the HR, resulted in a phone call with questions on background and interest. Next step was a phone screening with the Hiring Manager after which was called in to interview on site. Had 7 rounds of 1:1 interviews, half an hour each. Was very well organized. The interviews were in depth and detailed, focus was on analytical and problem solving skills. Was given a campus tour, people in general seemed very friendly.

Interview Details – Received a call from HR, who did a quick phone interview and then informed me they would send me an email with interview details. I received an email 3-4 days later with the date of the interview. I then received another email the day before the interview with names of who I would be meeting with. The day of the interview, I had 2 in-person interviews and one phone interview. They were easy, normal interview questions and honestly the people interviewing did most of the talking. It seemed like they already had made a decision and were just going through the motions since the interview had been set up. I then received the generic thanks, but no thanks email from HR about a week or so later.

Interview Details – Referral by employee, followed by phone contact from hiring manager. Applied through the online system and received a phone call from a recruiter within a few days to schedule a phone interview. It took about one week to schedule the phone interview and then two more weeks to schedule an in-person interview. The recruiter was very responsive to my inquiries during this time and always got back to me in a timely manner. The interview was scheduled about one weekout and included an agenda that contained two interviews, one each with the hiring manager and the director of the department. The in-person interviews went really well and I was excited and positive, that I would receive an offer.

Within a few hours, I heard back from the hiring manager that the interviews were great and that the recruiter would contact me soon with an offer. I did not hear from the recruiter, but the hiring manager called within 24 hours and said that they were enthused about me, but one more interview with a cross-functional team member would be needed; and proceeded to scheduled it for me. Then, HR contacted me within 24 more hours and scheduled another phone interview with me. The phone interview with the team member from another department was okay, but somewhat awkward because it focused on skills that I obviously didn't have to the extent that this person would have wanted. I called the hiring manager afterwards, and we discussed this concern. The hiring manager and the department director were aware of it, said it wasn't important, and still wanted to go ahead. Then the HR phone interview, a so-called "screening", took place. It was very thorough and covered all imaginable questions, from my time at school to where I was at the time, and everything in between. Very exhausting and...unexpected. Why, I wondered, this took place at this time in the interviewing process?

Within a few hours after the HR interview, I received a phone call from the hiring manager, that yet another interview had to be scheduled, with another cross-functional team member, but from another department. This felt very strange, but since the hiring manager assured me once again, that it would be a mere "formality", I agreed and forwarded my availability for the requested day. The day came and went, with nobody contacting me, or confirming any specific time. I contacted the hiring manager and was told that this person would be busy in meetings and, instead of arranging the interview for me, I was given the email address to arrange it myself - which I did. This was at the beginning of the week, and the phone call wasn't scheduled until the end of the week. I thought that this was strange, since the department director had shared with me how urgent they'd want to hire someone. Anyway, when the day came, the person called me a few minutes after the agreed-upon time. What followed then was the weirdest interview I've had thus far. The issue of my insufficient skills in that one particular area that came up before were tested and tried and found not to be good enough. The person told me quite frankly at that time, that I would not be the right person for the job, and we could end the interview right now because there was no use in wasting any more of each others' time. The call ended.

I sent an email to the hiring manager. The response came a few hours later, when the hiring manager left a voice mail: The last interview did not go so well, that person used all means and clout to get the VP of the department to let the hiring manager know that I would not be hired.

Interview Details – I was emailed by the recruiter to set up a time to have a phone interview. I did an initial phone screen with the recruiter and then scheduled another phone interview with a key player on the team the very next day. That phone interview went well, primarily asked me about relevant experience that I have had with regards to the position and he spent a lot of time talking to me about what the position is. Then the feedback was good so they brought me onsite, even offering to fly me up to San Jose. I was pretty impressed with the recruiting process up to now. They seemed to take really good care of their people. The onsite happened in which I spoke with four key members for 30 min each. They talked about various parts of the company i.e., the job, the culture, the team, and they asked a lot of behavioral questions and questions about my own career interests. In the end, I think they continued to interview other candidates, and after over two months, I still have not heard back from them regarding a final decision. I have followed up but they keep deferring the decision, so at this point I'm accepting that they probably are going to go with someone else. The interview process was great until this last bit when they were unable to make a decision for so long.

Interview Details – After a couple of emails and telephone conversations to set up an interview time, came in for Round 1 consisting of sequential 1:1 with hiring mgr and then three members of the team. Then Round 2 a week later with hiring manager's peers and one senior. No panels, all 1:1. No written assessments to complete.

Perceptions: Team-oriented culture.

Interview Details – I had the first phone interview with HR and the second phone interview with IT manager within a week. I expected the next step would be 1:1 interview and group interview. Unfortunately, this position was on hold and canceled later. According to HR, the salary range would be 50-60K.

Interview Details – I was scheduled to interview with all people on one day. After I arrived I found out that two people had cancelled and I needed t come back. This wasn't optimal.

Interview Details – A totally deplorable experience at Brocade. This was the first time I was caught in the crossfire of company politics as an interviewee.

I clear the mandatory phone screen. In fact it took four weeks to set that up. The first round of face to face was smooth. They got me to sign an NDA. No tough questions were asked. Brocade was on a hiring spree and they looked desperate to get me on board. So far so good. But so far it was just the marketing team and they were all nice and lovey-dovey.

I then get invited to the final round of face to face interviews with the extended team. It was just two guys. The first guy was nice. He had come over from Foundry and he was trying to judge my fit. Nothing difficult. But this guy gave me a glimpse into what was coming for me. He told me the previous guy in the role I was interviewing for got fired! I couldn't believe I was hearing this. Anyway this guy was just trying to be nice to me by being truthful. Indirectly he was telling me to watch out for the next guy who had gotten the previous guy fired. Apparently there is a lot of drama and politics inside Brocade. Product management and marketing do not get along well. Until recently they were all part of the same org but they have been split into different orgs over the last year. Product Management now blames Marketing for revenue shortfalls. You get the picture. Enter the final guy. This guy was one of the top dogs in their product management org. No pleasantries exchanged. Its straight to brass-tacks with this guy. He sounded very rude and intimidating. Anyway he asks me a lot of questions. Then I ask him how much revenues is your product making. He concedes his product is not a revenue play and thats where I must have ticked him off. He blurts out you are not a fit for this role. Imagine being fired before you even get hired. But I was relieved in a way. Anyway this guy says you have experience but not directly relevant. In that case why did you put me through several rounds of interviews until you tell me this. Wasn't that apparent from my resume in the first place. Anyway you get the picture. He was just trying to make the hiring process as difficult as possible for his marketing counterparts. This company stinks. Stay away.