I wish they had been a little kinder.
My onsite interview at Snap, Inc. in Seattle was difficult, to say the least. At the moment, Snap’s headquarters is in congnito. As in, in a building with no reception and no signage. That’s cool, I get it: Snap cares about its privacy. And I am honoring my non-disclosure agreement with the company by NOT writing about anything I learned while I was there. But I will tell you how I felt.
Arrival
Snap, Inc. is located in a building near Pike Place Market. My advice to anyone seeking to interview there is to look it up on Google Maps. Even if I had accidentally walked into the building, there’s no one and nothing there to indicate that you’ve arrived at your destination. EXCEPT the very unfriendly guard behind a desk, who will ask you what you are doing in the lobby as soon as you walk in. Keep your wits and tell him that you are there for an interview at Snap, Inc. and the full name of the person you are there to see. If you get past his security check, he will lead you to the elevators, call one, motion (it felt more like a push, honestly) you inside, and then activate the floor for your ascent. Welcome to Snap. I get that this is their procedure, and they have to be careful, but a little bit of a heads-up to the recruit would have been… kinder.
Interviews
I had the typical number of interviews (5 or so), and they were back-to-back. With the exception of lunch (which was very nice), no “refreshments” were offered. It would have been nicer, in my opinion, to have some kind of break between the interviews, or to have a (recruiting) coordinator check in with me as my day progressed to see if I wanted, oh say, coffee. Or, have coffee, water (anything) in the conference room they parked me all day (just spit-balling here). I mean, you come to Seattle and recruit people, and you don’t offer coffee? In Seattle? ;) I did get one bathroom break after lunch, though, which was OK, what with all the non-coffee. Interview etiquette was also not very nice, I felt. During one interview, my interviewer was browsing his device, rather than listening to me. I guess he could have been taking notes. One-handed. But he didn’t make eye contact, and by the end of the interview, I felt like I had failed to make any connection at all. I guess the team had already decided to flush me? That’s how it felt.
Mixed messages
Before I interviewed, my recruiter told me to expect a yes or no by the next morning. But, the same day I interviewed I got an email from their HR coordinator saying it had been great to meet me, they hoped I got a good feel for the role, etc. Strange, but great, I thought. It’s not a no. But then a “no” from my recruiter arrived a full 24 hours later. Maybe that’s just their standard policy? My advice would be to ignore any emails they send that don’t actually say yes or no. It felt like they were trying to keep me on the hook for an extra day while they continued to deliberate.
So… meh. I can’t (and haven’t) said anything about the company as a whole, but as someone who took a train to Seattle and spent the whole day there, I felt like I was doing my best for a company that didn’t care. And maybe that was because they didn’t like me, which I can accept. It’s fine, not every one is a match everywhere. But regardless of their disaffection of me personally, I wish they had offered more human comfort, instead of the Spartan, dehydrating day I had instead.
It’s funny: I’ve seen quite a few software companies come to Seattle over the years, quite a few. And I’ve seen many more leave.
