Ho presentato la mia candidatura online. La procedura ha richiesto 2 mesi. Ho sostenuto un colloquio presso Zalando (Berlino) nel mese di gen 2024
Colloquio
Process was a bit more informal for Zalando due to christmas times and absence of HR person.
I had a first very general 1 hour session with the hiring manager. After I got accepted to the next round I had each one hour interview:
- Coding (write function to sum all elements in nested list)
- expert interview (Statistics and Deep Learning Theory questions)
- Principal interview (how I tackle certain problem in the Data Science project process)
Domande di colloquio [1]
Domanda 1
Imagine you roll a dice with 6 sides and everytime you throw a 6 you can throw again. What's the expected value of throws per round.
How did you garantuee the quality of model selection in your last DS project. What was your role in the team? How did you communicate with Stakeholders and external teams?
Ho sostenuto un colloquio presso Zalando (Berlino)
Colloquio
The interview process was poorly organized and unprofessional. Across 5 rounds, multiple interviewers used the exact same question, showing a clear lack of coordination. As a candidate with a PhD in Machine Learning, I was given feedback that my machine learning knowledge was insufficient — yet one of the interviewers was unfamiliar with basic ML terminology and apologized at the end of the interview for his limited English proficiency, which made technical communication nearly impossible. The overall experience suggested a significant mismatch between the stated requirements and the actual evaluation criteria, and raised serious questions about the interview process design and interviewer preparation.
La procedura ha richiesto 3 mesi. Ho sostenuto un colloquio presso Zalando (Berlino) nel mese di ott 2025
Colloquio
They had overall about 5 Interviews.
There is firstly a 30min introduction.
Then a first 1 hour technical interview. If passed you'll go to, final rounds of interviews consisting of 4 interviews: coding, knowledge depth, collaboration, scope and impact.
Domande di colloquio [1]
Domanda 1
Explain a project and go into details.
Explain a situation where you had difficulty communicating.
Ho presentato la mia candidatura online. La procedura ha richiesto 3 mesi. Ho sostenuto un colloquio presso Zalando (Berlino) nel mese di ott 2025
Colloquio
The process involved a 30-minute HR screening, followed by the hiring manager round and then four final rounds: (1) Science Depth, (2) Science Breadth (coding), (3) Scope (product-focused), and (4) Collaboration. It felt extremely exhausting - especially having four ‘final’ rounds - only to receive an automated rejection email at the end. The interviewers were very pleasant and the HR team was prompt, but the overall process took nearly three months, which feels disproportionate given the offered salary.
