I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Medallia
Interview
The first stage is a hackerrank. After that they interview you in person. They recruited on campus, but I applied online before they came. The recruiters were really enthusiastic and focused on how great culture is at Medallia. Took several weeks to get the hackerrank invite.
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at Medallia (Austin, TX) in Oct 2015
Interview
Submit my resume in their tech talk, having an interview the very next day. They set me a meeting with one of their engineers in nearby coffee shop and I just code in the paper.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1. Implement a function to check if a string is palindrome or not
2. Given a cost function and a budget find the maximum quantity you can buy given those 2 parameters
I applied through college or university. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Medallia (Palo Alto, CA) in Oct 2015
Interview
The recruiting & engineering teams at Medallia was great through the whole process! Even though I didn't get an offer, I was glad to have met and talked with each of my interviewers.
The process began for me when I saw them give a talk to one of the student orgs at my school. They had some open interview slots, so I added myself to the list. I had one in-person interview a couple days later, then a coding challenge, phone screen (so the recruiter had a better idea of where to place me), and a final round of 4 back-to-back interviews via Skype.
The final round is pretty crazy because it's hard to get some break time between the interviews. I met with an interview to talk about some management stuff, culture stuff, and two technical interviews.
Another great thing about this process is that they let you know exactly what you messed up on. So many other places will just say "we can't say why not, but no." Medallia lets you know which part you messed up.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The management interview was mostly talking about my previous experience in other SWE roles and coursework.
The culture interview was a little weird, just because I'm not used to an interviewer asking those types of questions, but basically they want to know where you came from, why you have selected the academic track you have, etc.
The technical interviews were fine. Not out of reach, but also not a total cakewalk. I tripped up a little on the first one, but it was actually the second interviewer's feedback that messed up my chances. He reported to the recruiting team that I have made some mistakes (which was true), but I think my biggest problem with this interview was that the interviewer and I got so sidetracked talking all about the company and what it's like to work there. I thought that interview went really really well, but I guess the rushed mistake I made tipped the scale.
I'm not sure there's a whole lot I can do to improve feeling rushed, but I will definitely reapply next year with more focus on getting straight to the technical questions and saving the chat until afterwards.
