I applied through other source. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Ophelos (London, England) in Jul 2025
Interview
3 Step Process
Step 1 - system design.
Really nice interview with another senior engineer. Very chatty and comfortable, they're not trying to catch you out or make you feel dumb.
Step 2 - Coding exercise
I think they were trying out a new live tech test, and I won't lie, it didn't really work. Spent most of the time figuring out why it didn't work and didn't really have any time to actually focus on the task at hand. I did panic a bit but I kept communicating and explaining. The two engineers were pretty sympathetic but seemed to like my communication rather than any output I did. The recruiter did say that they will work on the test itself as it's not up to scratch
Step 3 - in person values session and meeting CTO/manager
Questions regarding the values of Ophelos. I sometimes find it hard to think of examples specific to another company's values, but essentially if you have a good head on you and are friendly/professional, you'll be fine. The CTO is also very very approachable and nice so no need to be scared here.
Overall the thing that made the process the best was the people. Everyone is very very nice and smart and puts you at ease
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
System design for something loosely based on their domain
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Ophelos in Jun 2026
Interview
The process initially appeared well structured and the interviewers were friendly. However, my experience became increasingly frustrating as the assessment criteria felt unclear and inconsistent with what was being evaluated later in the process.
The take-home exercise and technical discussions appeared to focus on engineering implementation, AI-assisted development and problem solving. However, the eventual feedback focused heavily on workflow simplicity, iterative delivery style and subjective UX considerations that were not clearly communicated as key evaluation criteria during the process.
I left feeling that success criteria were not transparent and that candidates were expected to infer what the interviewers were looking for rather than being assessed against clearly defined expectations. While the team was professional throughout, I found the overall process more subjective than objective.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you use AI to implement a new feature, and what improvements or trade-offs would you consider?