Appthority interview questions

An Appthority engineer reached out to me on LinkedIn and invited me to apply to an entry level engineering position. The process involved a semi-technical phone screen for the first stage, followed by a project demo + mostly behavioral on-site with the whole team (though a few technical questions were sprinkled in across those interviews as well). Overall, I enjoyed the process and appreciated the chance to meet a large cross section of Appthority's team. They definitely seemed willing to invest in finding candidates who are strong cultural fits. Every interviewer gave me ample time to ask questions and learn about Appthority. The team seemed cohesive and highly capable as well. After the interview, Appthority was able to give a decision quickly and gave in depth feedback about the result and tips on how I could improve, which I feel matches their academic culture. For the project demo, I was asked to implement a new feature on an existing project; I was a huge fan of this type of interview because even with a no-offer result, it gave me the opportunity to improve one of my resume projects. The feature I was asked to implement also pushed me to learn new features and tools in Rails, so I feel like I was able to grow my technical skillset through preparing for the demo. I would highly encourage other companies to consider this type of interview, as it really allows candidates to use their time effectively! There were a few minor quibbles I had with the interview process: - While some of my interviewers came in very prepared, there were other interviewers who did not seem to have read my resume in the final round. Overall, the team seemed somewhat uncoordinated in asking interview questions in that I got asked the same questions multiple times across interviews. - I was ultimately left with the impression that Appthority seeks candidates who not only have a good personality to fit with the team, but who are also passionate about the product and mission. However, the behavioral questions I was asked mostly delved into past experience and personality fit, with no questions regarding why I was interested in the cybersecurity industry or in their solution in particular. I would recommend that future candidates proactively create opportunities to express a passion for Appthority's product even when an interviewer does not directly ask about that. - In the last part of the final round, my point of contact made it clear that any offer, if made, wouldn't be open to negotiation, and that I would be expected to make a decision within "a few days" or they would move on to another candidate. The numbers he mentioned for a base package seemed very fair, so I wasn't particularly put off by the lack of negotiability, but I feel future candidates should know this going in. Candidates who dislike negotiation may find this attractive, while strong negotiators may wish to prioritize other opportunities.