After applying online, I received an email a week later asking to complete some additional fields on the application form after which they said they would get back to me to schedule a technically based phone interview with a solutions architect team member. The questions below are from the phone screen and not the in person which came later. I had to agree to a few things up front, the main thing being the willingness to travel up to 30% of the time which was fine.
The phone screen went well as it turns out. Was not sure I would get the invite to Seattle for the face to face "loop", but sure enough a week later another email came from a different recruiter asking my availability over the next four weeks. They also request a two-page writing sample on your choice of topics: either something that you've innovated or a risk that you've taken that paid off. Be aware that even though you choose one topic, you are likely to be asked about the other in your face to face.
I submitted my writing sample the first few days after the in-person request and then waited another week before a different recruiter got back to me with the interview date. Their travel partner, Carlson, called to make flight and hotel arrangements. If you'd like, they will fly you up a day early and back the day after, so you can enjoy some of the Seattle sites. Very accommodating process and nice hotel close to the office. I walked to the interview from the hotel -- a marathon hike of .7 miles.
The loop interview was challenging, and I would say maybe 1/4 technical and 3/4 behavioral with some overlap. They are trying to see how your work behaviors align (or don't align in my case) with their leadership principles. You will hear the preface "Tell me about a time..." constantly throughout your round of five. Then you should be prepared to answer in their STAR format (Situation, Task, Action, Result). They will steer you into this response format if you go astray, and you will absolutely have to apply data points and metrics to the result portion of your answer. Believe me, they will press you for the hard metrics even if you really didn't think about what you've done at work in measurable results. I caution you...if you can't do this, you WILL fail the interview. Make sure the situations you describe are bona fide because they will pick you apart if you are exaggerating or otherwise embellishing. Also take meticulous care to describe your situations and actions in terms of "I" instead of “us”. Also, don't be surprised to have someone bait you into throwing one or more members of your previous team under the bus for a project failure. Someone may encourage you to do this, but don't take the bait and make sure that you take a healthy amount of credit for your achievements and a healthy amount of blame for failures or risks that didn't pan out.
I had mixed feelings regarding the interviewers. One interviewer was not cordial at all, spent a lot of time trying to impugn my experience as a subject matter expert, and got serious attitude when I made a minor gaffe clarifying what team he was currently on. Might want to update your LinkedIn profile there, buddy. I felt like I could never convince him that I had a wealth of expertise that went well beyond a particular set of tools. The "bar raiser" I spoke with was a very nice gentleman who I feel like would have been fantastic to work with but like with some of the other guys was kind of hard to read. They seem to mask body language very well and have been well groomed in the art of the interview to be very engaged and interested at all times. The recruiting lead said that the interviewer would be taking notes at all times and to not think they are being rude.
The other interviewer of note was the hiring manager with whom it seemed like I built a decent rapport but acted a bit cool as we were concluding our talk. For a bit I was thinking "yeah, I got this", and then...maybe not so much.
They will assign you a lunch buddy to take you somewhere at noon in the immediate area. This person was a nice young guy...extremely personable and fun to talk tech and hobbies with during lunch.
Some things about the process were a bit frustrating. I wish they were not so obsessed with the insanely granular details of past work situations and for the interviewee to be able to provide hard result metrics. It would be better if the whole thing were more technically based and were driven more by personal chemistry than by the 14 leadership principles and expecting candidates to have conformed to them throughout their work history. Overall however, it was a good life experience and I was glad to have had the opportunity to stretch myself.
