Screening call with a recruiter who was plainly reading from a checklist of buzzwords they wanted to hear the candidate parrot back - e.g. TDD, back end, front end. I don't expect the screening recruiter to be an expert, but they should be able to conduct a screening call without it feeling like a robot is performing the interview. I was told on the call I would proceed to the next step - which consisted of a "logic" pattern matching test. Here comes the interesting part - you need to score at least 13/18 to proceed to the next stage.
Unfortunately I opted to leave the process at this stage. The negative company reviews here coupled with a recruitment team that thinks there is a correlation between a pattern matching test and exceptional people managers and technical leaders is not one that is worth spending your time on. I'm willing to bet serious money that they don't even have internal metrics that support the cut-off of 13 in terms of great hires versus weak hires. Total pseudo science and should have no place in recruitment in 2019.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Just be prepared on the screening call to be able to repeat buzzwords.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months. I interviewed at Klarna (Stockholm, ) in Jan 2025
Interview
Screening interview, then Cultural Fit in parallel with a case interview, they added a technical interview more connected to system design, then meeting other L4.5s, and offer after a few weeks. The interviews were rushed and I felt interviewers checking boxes instead of trying to establish a meaningful connection
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How to keep engineers motivated during challenging times?
During the behavioral interview the interviewer was not experienced and wasted a lot of time discussing experiences from years ago instead of more recent related experiences
I didn't push forward for the next steps in the end but I didn't get a very good impression
Solid and well run, got to meet quite a few people from the Engineering Organization. I wouldn't change anything, as this process totally met my expectations, even though it took a bit longer that I wanted it to.