My negative experience with Deliveroo Interviews
I applied for the Senior Software Engineer position in London around Oct 2021. Interview Process: - Live Coding + Programming theory questions (Done through external company) - Take Home Test - System Design Interview - Culture Interview Through the entire process I was in touch with a recruiter from Deliveroo. Once I finished the Live Coding challenge, my recruiter told me that my feedback was so good, that I would not have to the Take Home and would be progressed to the System Design Interview. After the System Design Interview, the recruiter expressed that I had gotten overwhelmingly positive feedback and he was confident of my getting an offer. The problems were at the Culture Interview. The Eng Manager introduced himself as an ex-Amazon manager and started asking me questions. Many times it seemed as though he was reading a script and not actually listening to me. He would ask me questions where the answer would be something I had already talked about. It was a terrible experience. The next day I expressed my frustrations to the recruiter before I had even received my feedback. I was told that this manager felt I was not "Senior enough technically" and should absolutely not be recommended for the role. The Hiring committee agreed with that assessment and was told they would offer me a level down, with significantly less TC. So everyone in the process had good things to say about my technical seniority except in the CULTURE INTERVIEW. The recruiter (amongst others since then) have expressed a gate keeping culture at Deliveroo where ex-FAANG will intentionally look down on candidates from elsewhere. I dont know if that is true, but the Culture Interview showcased the least welcoming culture I've ever seen. #tech #deliveroo #hiring
This is why luck is a major part of interviewing. You happened to get someone who was shitty. Nothing you can really do to control that. Hope you’ve had better luck and success since then!
I think he was typing your responses. Later on he must have gone back and evaluated your answers to see you fitment. Feedback from interviews vs. feedback from hiring committee can be completely different. They tend to compare your profile, your answers and get a directionally ideally on where you land.it is highly judgemental. This process is created to get the best outcome in best circumstances..you need to have strong feedback in all interviews to land at the recommended level. Additionally you don't know what HR didn't tell you. It is possible that feedback was positive but it is also possible that some interviewers gave you a lower level recommendation. I doubt that this happened because of cultural interview. Your recruiter intentionally hid these things. The hiring committee would have seen these things and then came with this outcome
To add getting good feedback vs. in addition getting a lower level recommendation are two different things. Good feedback is mostly shared by recruiter. The internal sensitive recommendations are not shared so early and have to go to hiring committee (as it can change depending on your hiring manager feedback). I think you are being too harsh and judgemental with ex FAANG ppl. There is no such thing as ex FAANG. atleast I don't give a shiit about it and same thing with my colleagues. If you do think it that ways I am sure you will become the same person that you are accusing off. Grow up and move on.
That is just a terrible experience as a candidate. As someone someone who has been a part of this section of the process on both sides of the table, this is not at all how this interaction should go. It is as much about showcasing your company's culture to the candidate as it is about assessing the candidate's fit. Why would the recruiter give me the bad feedback from this interview but not the others? Lastly, I am only relaying what many people have expressed about ex-FAANG specifically at Deliveroo and not casting judgement on my own.
Huge 🚩🚩🚩🚩 I have heard of similar experience from Grammarly - terrible behavioral interview
Curious what was the package they were offering. Can't see Deliveroo surviving cost of living crisis
They were offering me 90k base + 15% bonus for Senior. 76k base + 15% bonus for the mid level.
Amazon is a virus.
I stopped reading when you mentioned the interview process. I presume that something went wrong with the process and I am sorry for that. Let me ask you now, don't you see any red flag in the order & the competencies of the process, let alone that the first stage is not even done internally? You dodged a bullet don't worry.
Well I was told that they had been hiring so aggressively that it was taking up too much dev time. So it seemed reasonable at the time. As for the order, could you please elaborate? I've never really paid attention to the order of interviews.
Well the hiring aggressively is BS, which firm that wants to hire good people delegates the coding round to someone else? Also have you seen any company to do live code round and then asking for take home test? I mean what is the logic behind that? you either do the one or the other, and even if you do both the take home test goes first, so you identify where the interviewers need to focus on live session. The whole process is messed up and you should expect the people who are running it to be messed up as well. Thanks for sharing your experience, I wish you good luck on the next one.
You dodged a bullet. Roo is full of ex-Amazon people who have wet dreams of PIP culture. Roo also doesn’t do well financially. Although they give RSUs their stock is already down more than 70% after Ipo.
Experienced a similar thing with Deliveroo, with the technical recruiter, even though my experience and skillset were matching the requirements mentioned in the JD of the staff engineer role, the recruiter has replied to me saying, that they are going to consider me only for the senior software engineer role. i said ok, lets just start with the interview process and had an one to one connect with the recruiter, i have directly asked him, what are the core competencies that differentiate a staff engineer and a SSE role, he was not able to answer my question directly,but quoted that an Engineer working at meta for 6 years, will be more suited for staff role, than some one who has considerably more experience, and worked at another company. i clearly understood, what their intentions are, i did not go though the interview process, as there was a mismatch with the compensation details,i was expecting. Best thing would be to avoid, such companies.
@zeta can you please tell system design round questions in your interview? I am done with KARAT round, and now I have to go for system design round.
@DAZN can you please tell system design round questions in your interview? I am done with KARAT round, and now I have to go for system design round.
TC or GTFO