I applied online. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at Databricks in Dec 2022
Interview
There are few companies who are transparent through out the interview process, this team set standards and wants you to succeed though out. I love the experience , transparency, skills, willingness to succeed. Again you must be committed when you are interviewing a company like DB.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
NDA, but just be confident, committed and true to your knowledge. I also 100% agree with comments from the similar roles who accepted the position.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Databricks (Londen, Engeland) in Nov 2022
Interview
** Disclaimer: I'm fully aware of the previous experiences that other candidates have reviewed for this role, and I appreciate that DB was probably in a different stage compared to the present, thus explaining why there were more negative skewed reviews. **
The interview process for the SA role at DB was straightforward, well-organised, and completely respectful from my perspective, especially since I managed expectations from the very start that I did not come from a Data Science/AI/ML background.
While there were many stages in the process compared to other organisations I've interviewed with, I felt completely comfortable and enjoyed each interaction. The lead recruiter also did a fantastic job in keeping me up to date and prepared me accordingly for each stage:
- Recruiting Sourcer from LinkedIn (30 min call)
- Lead Recruiter Screen (45 min call)
- Hiring Manager Screen (45 min call)
- Take Home Technical Assignment (1 week deadline)
- Technical Interview: Architecture & Data Science/Engineering Questions (1 hour)
- Presentation (Pre-Sales) Showcase (30 min prep call with HM and 1 hour call for presentation)
- Executive Leadership Interview (30 mins call)
- Hiring Manger & Lead Recruiter Wrap-Up (30 mins)
Potential candidates may see the above as long-winded, but if you're serious about joining DB and you are worth your weight, then these stages should be effortless. After all, would you join a company which has subpar employees? Probably not.
DB has also done a tremendous job in streamlining/parallelising these stages, so it took approximately 3 weeks to complete (as supposed to 8 weeks from other reports), until a former offer was extended and accepted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Standard screening questions about current role, career experience, Databricks as a product/company, why move roles? etc.
While NDA was signed for technical assessment (cannot share specifics), it involved solving a series of questions using a Databricks cluster and notebook. You should have no problems answering as long as you can read API documentation and reference answers you have obtained via Google/StackOverflow.
The technical interview rounds involved describing a solution architecture you've implemented, what business challenge it solves, room for improvement, as well as more general Spark/ETL/Data Engineering questions etc.
The sales presentation round extended the technical interview by simulating the proposed solution to a customer, objection handling, and business acumen. e.g. why have you proposed this solution and how does it help our business needs?, "we already have X, why use this?" etc.
Very well structured, manage consistency all through the interview process and establishing the standards and judge candidates on performance, not just on prior experience and start by defining the key requirements of the job