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      Senior Backend Engineer Interview

      Jan 29, 2024
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      San Francisco, CA
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Average interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at OpenAI (San Francisco, CA)

      Interview

      Very long wait between every stage. Took 3 weeks to get on the phone with a recruiter where all he did was confirm I would work in person and don’t need sponsorship (which I already said in their form). Another 2+ weeks until the first technical interview, another week to talk to a recruiter again, then several weeks until an onsite and a week until the decision. The holidays explains some of this, but other companies I applied to during the same time were much faster. The interviews themselves were fine, though the first round coding question included what I would describe as “graph algo trivia” which I see as bad practice. The onsite experience was grueling and uncomfortable. No bathroom breaks and only a half hour at an odd time to eat lunch (also no lunch provided). They offered API credits to learn about the opportunity in an invite email, but ignored my request to actually get them. Two of the interviews required time consuming preparation. If you have a job, good luck finding the time to prepare for this, and if you don’t have a job, you better have months of savings stocked up because it’s not going to be quick. Maybe if you tell them you have expiring offers they will try harder, I don’t know. One thing I liked about the process was the hints they give ahead of the technical rounds to help you prepare, like “brush up on graphs”. Take them seriously.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      Design a POI app that lets you search for places nearby
      Answer question
      11

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