Vulcan Interview Questions

I applied online and was contacted about 1 month after I applied. The first step was a recruiter screening, followed by 1:1 interview with hiring manager, and then a half-day of in-person panel interviews.

Lengthy and with too many people. From the first phone screen to the final conversation the process took forever. They provided lunch for me but it was weird to eat alone in a meeting room.

Thorough, respectable and clear. Was kept abreast of next steps and treated well by the recruiter. Appreciated the length of the interview as well as the follow on questions. Needed additional clarity regarding different entities of Vulcan.

I applied online in Feb 2020 and met the recruiter at a career fair. Received an invite to interview (1 hour) and a 15 minute follow up with the recruiter.

Started with a short phone screening by HR. Mostly questions about how well you knew/admired the company and its work. Then had an in-person meeting with the hiring manager over coffee. Seemed like the organization was going through a lot of transition and a lot of the questions were based around dealing with changes/ambiguity.

I talked about my research project and the interviewers asked for some questions related to the project. They also explained about the summer project and asked how I would approach the problem.

Initial screening call by Vulcan recruiter, followed by video call by hiring manager, ending in full day in-person interviews (45 minutes each) with six team members. Phone call placed to let me know I was not selected for this role.

The recruiter was very communicative and the time from application through the gamut of interviews to the rejection was fast (a month). Everyone I met was polite and professional. That being said, both the recruiter and I should've done more due diligence during the initial phone call. We went straight from the recruiter call to a 3 1/2 hour onsite. Once I made it to the on-site step and met with all of the stakeholders, it was obvious I wasn’t a fit. My skills and experiences were a semi-fit, but the work statement of their role wasn’t. It was a good learning opportunity on improving my due diligence questioning.

Initial phone screen with recruiter who gave me an overview of the org, its history, and the role. Scheduling was very easy, they worked with me to accommodate my work schedule and other company interviews I was trying to navigate. Recruiter and manager were very responsive to my questions and emails. Met with the manager of the team next to get an overview of the role and learn more about the team. Third interview was on site, 4.5 hour loop. I enjoyed the collaborative discussions I had with folks. Spoke further with the recruiter about the org, did a software architecture exercise round, a pair programming code exercise with a future teammate, a algorithm exercise, then got to ask any follow up questions to the manager. Received an competitive offer shortly afterward. The manager offered to (optionally) schedule chats with two engineers on adjacent teams to learn more about their Vulcan experiences. Took the time to meet up with them to ask more questions about the day-to-day, and then accepted the offer!

The interview process was straightforward, efficient, and quite comfortable, which was especially nice from a candidate experience perspective. I received a screening call from the senior recruiter where we discussed the company, the project overview, and any questions I had. A few weeks later I had an on-site interview with members of the team which covered one technical portion and a couple more general personality-type and team-oriented sessions. The contacts throughout the process were responsive and great communicators who made sure I had all the information I needed at each step. I was impressed by how much care they put into the candidates during the process.