Dropbox Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Dropbox (San Francisco, CA) in July 2017.

Interview

I did the phone screen. Interviewer was almost fresh out of school. I started by describing my experience at his request. I was given a coding problem(since being a consistent code monkey is the top requirement). I solved the problem with the best space/time complexity possible, took care of the edge cases, tested my solution very well, answered additional follow up questions in detail (see the interview question section for details). I also kept the interviewer engaged in a conversation by explaining my thought process and asking if he agreed with my approach before I proceeded. After the interview, I verified that my solution was accurate (including the follow up questions). Interviewer seemed happy with the solution, answered my side of the questions almost in a convincing manner that I should definitely consider this company. And, then I received a rejection.

I was perplexed and could not understand what else could I do to make it any different. I have interviewed people in my career and I have done a lot of interviews with major players that I passed with flying colors. The only metrics that I see as input are: experience, code itself (clarity, documentation, syntax) and problem solving skills, proper implementation with best space/time complexity analysis, thorough testing approach, knowledge on any follow up/additional questions, interest in the position/company and general communication skills etc. To assess a person in 45-60 minutes on all those correctly is actually not possible(yet this is the best these companies can come up with). But, I do know that I did not leave much/any room for error from my end. So my assessment is that this company is not really hiring/hiring much. They are just pretending to hire, which is not very uncommon.

Do not waste your time with this company. This company (like many others in the same league) is a waste of time. They are making it look like they are hiring. Just look at the reviews of so many other candidates here. They did well or well enough and got a surprise rejection. A job application is a tedious process. Searching for a right company, searching for a right position, going through recruiter's process, preparing very thoroughly for your phone interview on all those metrics that I mentioned earlier, taking time out of your work or school to prepare and interview and then perform like a champion with a superman cape to be able to make it through for an in-person step, and then repeat all of the above 5 times for the in-person step. Now imagine if this was all just for show and a company wasn't truly hiring. Hence, I called it a waste of my time and effort and I stick by what I said.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Dropbox (San Francisco, CA).

Interview

Was contacted by recruiter via LinkedIn.
1st interview (30 min) with QA by phone went great - in the way of getting information about the experience.
2nd interview (1 hour) with QA lead - was asked about how can I improve the quality of an airline. I provided the answers in the way how I understand airlines and what can be improved from my point of view, but that was more like one way conversation - the interviewer seemed very tired and not interested and all that he said after my answers was "Ok.." and the following question was like "You said that... How you can you improve that..." I felt stuck up and didn't understand if that is good or bad answer.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Dropbox.

Interview

I completely agree with the person below me who described Dropbox is pretending to hire. This is exactly the impression I got from the recruiter's feedback - she told me they talked to great people everyday but can't move forward with everyone. Also they didn't specify a certain skill set/experience that I am lacking - this looks like they just enjoy taking/meeting candidates but may not be in a position to hire.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through other source. I interviewed at Dropbox (Seattle, WA).

Interview

I had two technical interviews and one interview for my questions only.
First one I knew already so I let them know I met the problem already. They asked a different one and I started to think about it, after some loud thinking and sharing my ideas/challenges I came up with proper solution while also mentioning about how to extend the solution to a more generalized one as well as came up with a design of distributed system which could serve a high demand of User traffic.
Second problem contained two sub-tasks and I coded both of them. As for the first one there was quite some time to go over time/space complexity and to code an slightly more complicated version of the problem.
There were silent listeners during both sessions together with main interviewer.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Dropbox.

Interview

The recruiter contacted me after I submitted my resume online. Then she arranged a phone interview after several days. During the interview, I was asked to code in an interactive online tool. Only one question was asked, the whole process was with 2 hours.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Dropbox.

Interview

Had an internal referral, then phone screen with the recruiter, which went really well (knew from my internal referral), but then a day later was informed the team didn't want to have a conversation. It's fine, but when I meet all the qualifications, both minimum and preferred, it's bizarre the team wouldn't even want to have a conversation. Why post a job if you're not going to speak to qualified candidates? I also never heard back from the recruiter on why the team was not interested in having a conversation. Poor experience and recruiting from Dropbox.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Dropbox (San Francisco, CA) in June 2017.

Interview

The process involved a recruiter interview, a phone interview with the hiring manager, and a round of meeting 4-5 folks on the analytics team as well as cross functional team.

Folks were pretty young. It was a decent work environment with a nice patio, a downstairs gym, decent looking onsite food, and the vibe i got was that it was a fairly chaotic company trying to get more mature and move away from that chaos. Don't think that will change soon however.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Dropbox in May 2017.

Interview

Did an hour-long Hackerrank test before speaking to a technical interviewer. It was actually an interesting problem; not a fizzbuzz test. I was able to solve it in time but apparently not well enough (or not neatly enough, I'm not sure what their priorities were).

Interview Questions

Interview

Two phone screens, a short homework assignment, and a few short rounds of in person interviews. They were only 30 minutes each, however, so I only spent roughly 2.5 hours in office. This is much better than most of the 6 hour marathons some companies will put you through.

I didn't receive an offer, however, in one of probably the best interview experiences in my life, the recruiter called me to let me know the group's decision making process. This was much better than just waiting indefinitely and getting a canned email 2 weeks later. I could understand the thought process and, ultimately, actually agreed with their decision making.

Interview Questions

Interview

I was contacted by a recruiter. Asked me if I was interested in the position. I mentioned that I was, so we set up a phone technical interview. I felt I did well on this interview, but was later told that I wouldn't be moving forward.

Interview Questions