Let me share a DA interview. I signed an NDA so I won't go into detail. From what I've seen on the forum, it feels like nobody has ever gotten an offer from this one... so I didn't have very high hopes going in, and sure enough, that's how it went.
First was the Karat screen: they tested SQL, R, and some statistics knowledge.
A week later I got the invite for the first round.
Round 1: they asked about a project from my resume (asked me an extension question I couldn't answer), tested SQL and R, easy. Also a very simple case question.
Two days later I got the invite for round two.
Round 2:
Tech: asked about my resume, my R section only had three questions... the fourth question was metrics design. I'd call it medium difficulty, not quite hard. It tested window functions and that kind of thing.
Case: interviewed by the hiring manager, spent half an hour on my resume plus a BQ, the case question was also an ML pipeline one, though the question I actually got asked didn't really connect to the pipeline she gave me? I basically answered with common sense and some basic data quality points.
BQ: interviewed by the PM, all about the team, plus some situational questions.
HR at this company was actually pretty good, replied to emails fast, good overall experience.
Getting cut at the final round still hurt, but all I can do is move on.
Adding a feedback note:
Coding round: no issues.
Case round: since I'd read forum write-ups beforehand, I asked a clarifying question for every problem, but the feedback was that I couldn't quickly understand the question and needed to confirm too much (??? confused by this). Second, he said I needed a few seconds to think on every question (??? I don't think I took more than five seconds, and I was using phrases like "I think" or repeating the question to stall). Third, my answers weren't concrete enough — he probably wanted me to jump straight to the key point of the answer. This HM has been at the company seven years, and his bar for hiring is really high.
BQ round: some of my answers ran a bit long... (which might actually be true, since I tend to cover every angle, so during the interview she said there were a lot of questions she couldn't follow up on).
HR said the main reason I was cut was the case round.
After hearing the feedback all I can say is... this bar. Not seeing any friends land an offer here makes sense then. I guess I'd need another three years in this field to hit that standard.
Moving on.
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