Vulcan Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in May 2017.

Interview

Initial Phone screen was a recruiter who didn't seem to know very much about technology or software. She seemed very interested in promoting Paul Allen rather than talking about the position itself.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in April 2017.

Interview

Went through a phone screen first. Very basic questions about my background. Was invited back for an in person interview a few days later, which was scheduled about a week out. This lasted about 3 hours with three rounds of interviews. The questions were all behaviorally based which made it easier to reference specific experiences in my answers.

Two weeks later I came in for another round of interviews with different leaders. This also lasted about three hours and included two or three rounds.

The recruiter did a fantastic job of making sure I knew what the timeline looked like as did the hiring manager. Overall a good experience and they seemed to move through the process very quickly.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in January 2017.

Interview

I hope this was just my bad luck. I was excited when I first learned about this job opportunity. I had two non-technical phone calls with recruiters, both calls were about a half hour late. They went fine other than the recruiters were not very technical.

I learned from them that Vulcan has a strict no work from home policy and is quite secretive. I still don't understand why such a philanthropic company needs to be so tightlipped (very counterintuitive).

I scheduled a technical interview that was to be phone plus computer. I signed an NDA. I set aside the asked for hour but this call was also a half an hour late. I offered to do as much as we could in the remaining half an hour, but the technical person wasn't up for this.

After all of this I decided not to reschedule. There are many other opportunities in the sea.

I hope your experience goes better than mine. I would recommend, though, if you start to experience red flags early in the process quit before you end up wasting lots of time.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 3 days. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in November 2016.

Interview

I was contacted for a screening interview. The interview went very well. Was then sent a set of four very basic questions about experiences, process improvement, communication with stakeholders etc.

But then there was just silence so after a week I emailed recruiter, no response. Wrote them off after a another week of silence. Experience was rude. They should at least say they have moved on to someone else or you're still in the running.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in May 2016.

Interview

I went through the phone screen and then was invited to interview onsite. The onsite interview was pretty basic. One of the people I interviewed with told me that she didnt know what she was supposed to ask.
Being in HR, I understand that some people arent used to interviewing and its a learning experience.
After all was said and done, I never heard back from them at all. No rejection, no request for additional information, nothing.
In the end, all worked out as it should and I'm happy where I am. I'm merely posting this in the hopes that the recruiting team sees this and makes sure that they really pay attention to the candidate experience as mine was pretty sad. Again, being in HR I expect recruiters to close out every candidate that comes onsite for an interview.
Great company and I hope they're successful!

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in March 2016.

Interview

I applied because the job description and company mission statement sounded amazing. Who doesn't want to work on machine learning algorithms to save elephants? I initially talked to an HR representative who said I then will be talking to the hiring manager next.

About a week later, I had an interview with the hiring manager, a brilliant and nice guy. He then said I should come in for a few in person interviews.

A week after that, I came in and had 5 in person interviews. The first three interviews were software/coding interviews. The 4th was lunch with a director and the 5th was a skype interview with two long distance programmers. After the interviews, I had suspicions that they were looking for more of a software developer than a machine learning developer. No one really tested my knowledge of machine learning or statistics. Although there were some interesting coding questions.

I had some competing offers at the time so I was honest and said I would like to hear back asap. The HR representative told me it would have to wait a week because the hiring manager was out.

A week and a half later, I was told that they would like to make an offer but wanted to talk about salary expectations.

Three days later from that, I called to check, and the HR representative told me that they haven't had a chance to meet and review the offer. They would in 2-3 days.

A week later, I sent another email and the HR rep responded and said that the CTO was going to approve it.

A week after that I sent another email and still haven't heard back. It's been 7-8 weeks since I had the first interview and 3 weeks since I was told an offer would be made.

I'm done pulling teeth and have accepted another offer. If a company says they want to make an offer but delays and makes excuses and doesn't make a written offer- that's indicative of a deeper issue that puts me off.

Overall the interviews were great, I met some smart people, answered some interesting questions, and only got a verbal offer, nothing in writing. I'm pretty sure nothing will come of it.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in March 2016.

Interview

Two parts of interviews. The first one was to talk with the team manager I would be working for and it last for about an hour. Then I did a half an hour interview with the HR.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Vulcan in March 2016.

Interview

Great communication throughout, always honest. The team seemed to really care about the interns and fully supported them. The company itself is great, helping those in need. John Allen is a great individual and should be admired by all.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 2+ months. I interviewed at Vulcan (Seattle, WA) in April 2015.

Interview

Called by HR and underwent a telephone interview. The HR person knew nothing about the field for the position and some of the questions were bizarre. They were interested in me but my current public sector salary was much higher than the top end of where they were willing to go--this surprised me as the aspiration of the program requires a great deal of expertise and experience. This tells me that they have little understanding of the cost of talent outside the IT field.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 5+ weeks. I interviewed at Vulcan.

Interview

HR staff were professional and the process was timely. I spoke with a wide cross section of individuals who asked thoughtful questions. It spoke to the quality of the people there and the potential they saw in their work.

Interview Questions

Negotiation

Negotiations were swift and, for the most part, fair. The relatively low number of vacation days was off-putting but they wouldn't budge.