The first talk was with the recruiter, who reached out to me via LinkedIn. He gave me an overview of the company, the product and the interview process. Next I had to take an online coding assignment. It was straightforward, but I did have a typo I couldn't catch, that made me fail a lot of the tests. After I figured this out, I reached out to the recruiter, and it did not prevent me to move on to the phone screen. The phone screen was an hour discussion with a manager, which included questions about my past projects, and also a question about 'how would you implement a system that does this and that', on which we iterrated together. Overall it was a very pleasant experience, and I could sense that the interviewer is there to assist me, and not to test me. The onsite included 3 interviews, which I selected to do over 3 different days. The first session was a coding session, for a problem where I had to use some API and wrap it with additional logic. The focus was on edge cases and correctness. The second session was a code review session; first I had to review sample code and comment on it, and second I had to write some code, re-write it as requirements changes, and talk it through with the interviewer. The third session was a system design question around databases and API to execute queries. The focus was on high level components, and the interaction between them. After the onsite, I was extended an offer.

Initial 30 minute call with a recruiter, followed by a short take-home exercise, then an hour long 2nd round technical interview with an engineering manager, then a pretty standard final round of interviews (system design, behavioral, code review). 2nd and 3rd round all remote over Zoom. I had my final round interviews scheduled but ended up cancelling them the night before because I accepted an offer elsewhere. The offer I accepted was basically a perfect fit from a mission/culture standpoint and that put them slightly above Starburst in my mind. The recruiter seemed annoyed that I cancelled and repeatedly replied to my emails with pressing questions, seemingly trying to find a "real reason" for why I was cancelling. The recruiter seemed to think that it had something to do with the tech stack, when the tech stacks at Starburst and the company I accepted the offer with are in reality very similar. I'm trying to manage the process as professionally as possible, but sometimes when you have 5-6+ final-round interviews in flight, things get hectic. I tried to give them as much notice as I possibly could given the circumstances. It's sad because before this last interaction, I was excited about the company and it seems like they have a lot of interesting technical challenges ahead of them. I wouldn't recommend interviewing with this company based on my experience.