I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at HubSpot (Cambridge, MA) in Jul 2012
Interview
I was contacted by an internal recruiter and after an initial conversation they setup a phone screen. The phone screen involved a coding challenge using one of those shared text editor tools as well as a series of technical questions and questions about my experience.
After the phone screen they setup a face to face interview. Upon arriving at their office I was greeted by the recruiter, offered coffee, and escorted to a conference room. All very nice and polite. Then the interviews started. Their shtick seemed to be interviewing in pairs (or double-teaming) - I ended up speaking to 3 pairs of engineers.
The first set was very polite and asked me to solve a whiteboard problem. One person was friendly and engaging and was able to provide a lot of insight into the day-to-day life at the company. The other person in the pair was quiet and seemed inexperienced, perhaps still learning how to interview, which is ok I suppose.
The second pair included one senior engineer and one "uber-engineer". They asked a simple whiteboard problem, which I once again solved. Then they proceeded to ask various technical and design questions making fun of the technologies on my resume in the process (I found that to be very rude). The "uber-engineer" especially made some very smug comments about the fact that I use specific frameworks at my current job and proceeded to tout his own past experiences at IBM as a contrast. When I disagreed with his opinion and said that I don't like unnecessarily reinventing the wheel he seemed very unhappy with my response and seemed to have lost interest in speaking with me further. At the end of his line of questioning he seemed annoyed that I had questions of my own and after giving me some short answers about the company he left in a hurry along with the other engineer.
The third pair consisted of a VP of engineering and another person. They were much more polite and the questions were more general - no white board this time. They were both friendly and forthcoming yet they too managed to poke fun at the technologies I used in the past, albeit in a less rude way.
After a couple of days the internal recruiter called me to say that they decided to pass because I wasn't a cultural fit. I was neither surprised nor particularly upset by this. I found the overall experience slightly unpleasant and very off-putting.
I applied through college or university. I interviewed at HubSpot (London, England)
Interview
I went through several rounds, including an initial screening, a technical assessment, and follow-up interviews. The process was well structured, but I found the technical part challenging because it required both problem-solving and clear communication under time pressure. The interviewers were professional, and the questions were relevant to the role. Although I did not receive an offer, the experience was still valuable and helped me understand the company’s expectations better.
Coding assessment with multiple levels. levels open up as you pass them. Time constraints looked tight. I could not get through all levels. It was related to Designing banking system.
I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at HubSpot (Dublin, Dublin)
Interview
Consists of an Online Assessment, followed by 3 rounds (2 System Design, 1 coding)
One of the System Design interviewer was less experienced (with an experienced shadow interviewer). I feel like they didn't drive it correctly, didn't ask me the right follow-up questions and eventually gave negative feedback.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Online Assessment: Multi-part question involving incremental development of a memory cache database
System Design 1: Design a weather widget to get data from upstream and display to customers
Coding Round: Incremental question involving API calls to get data, parse and do calculation
System Design 2: Design video streaming system (like Netflix)
