I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Datadog (London, England) in Feb 2021
Interview
I can only describe it as probably the best hiring process that I've ever been part of. It was fast (1.5 weeks) & smooth, the interviews thought provoking and with every interaction, I felt that they care about people as individuals and there's an extraordinary collaboration & respect between the technical and non-technical sides of the business (engineering - recruitment).
I was contacted by one of the recruiters and a couple of days later we had a very enjoyable informal chat. The company, the vision and the role were described very well. The next step was a set of final interviews focusing on a number of key recruitment areas. Prior to these interviews, the recruiter gave me lots of advice and pointers for preparation. All interviews had a nice flow - although there were specific questions asked, I didn't feel grilled at all. Throughout the process, I had lots of touch points with the recruiter and the coordinator - both of them updating me on the process, giving me lots of feedback (you don't get this often, or at all) and I immediately felt that I want to be part of that team and provide the same candidate care & support that I have received.
One thing to highlight is that I was interviewed by two engineering leads (director/manager). I've never seen this in a recruiter hiring process but it has played a big role in putting Datadog at the top of the list of companies that I was interviewing with at the time. It shows how tight the relationship is between recruitment and engineering and that's extremely important and valuable.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Be prepared to talk about your day to day work in detail and break down your processes, workflows into bite size pieces.