Humanist living the Colorado life, w/ a modicum of scripting experience. My background is across multiple industries (mostly contract work). Emotional intelligence > Artificial Intelligence
Previously at Uber, Skyscanner, Skype/Microsoft. I love to help people grow and share what I learned. I write longer articles on software engineering at blog.pragmaticengineer.com.
Startups are risky, by default. I joined late-stage, still-fast-growing startups with pretty good reputation, which hedged the risk considerably.
The thing I did with Uber, and what I'd recommend, is after you have an offer, "re-interview" your future manager and the most experienced/longest tenured person on your future team. When I interviewed with Uber, in Amsterdam, I only knew that it's a tiny office, far away from HQ in SF. At the time, there were over 1,000 engineers in the Bay Area and 25 in Amsterdam.
So when I got an offer, before accepting, I asked to talk to both my manager again and the longest tenured mobile engineer in Amsterdam, who also happened be engineer #3 at Uber. I came with a list of questions, trying to understand what they liked about Uber, what were the bad parts and why they believed the Amsterdam office and Uber would succeed. I got really positive signs and this helped me solidify my decision.
The smaller the startup, the more higher up I would talk with key people. If they want you, this is a no-brainer. If you join a great team, you'll learn more and the team will succeed with higher chance than if it's a place that's very "meh".
Also, to your original question: all startup phase companies I worked with had terrible and unorganized interview processes, at the time when I interviewed (they've gotten a lot better, as they matured). Uber messed up my interview - I was supposed to interview for a mobile role, but I ended up doing a backend onsite - and apparently at Skyscanner forgot to send me a takehome that everyone else took (not that I minded). Skype was also super weird: I did a takehome, got some strange feedback and asking to make changes. I did them, heard no feedback for weeks, when I was asked to come for a surprisingly easy onsite. Here, I joined a team that did not exist and could not talk to my future manager or team mates, because they were all being still hired. So if it's a messed up process: that won't be the first.
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Re: startups, is there anything in the interview process you've seen as either red flags to avoid or green flags that indicate a good place to work?
Startups are risky, by default. I joined late-stage, still-fast-growing startups with pretty good reputation, which hedged the risk considerably.
The thing I did with Uber, and what I'd recommend, is after you have an offer, "re-interview" your future manager and the most experienced/longest tenured person on your future team. When I interviewed with Uber, in Amsterdam, I only knew that it's a tiny office, far away from HQ in SF. At the time, there were over 1,000 engineers in the Bay Area and 25 in Amsterdam.
So when I got an offer, before accepting, I asked to talk to both my manager again and the longest tenured mobile engineer in Amsterdam, who also happened be engineer #3 at Uber. I came with a list of questions, trying to understand what they liked about Uber, what were the bad parts and why they believed the Amsterdam office and Uber would succeed. I got really positive signs and this helped me solidify my decision.
The smaller the startup, the more higher up I would talk with key people. If they want you, this is a no-brainer. If you join a great team, you'll learn more and the team will succeed with higher chance than if it's a place that's very "meh".
Also, to your original question: all startup phase companies I worked with had terrible and unorganized interview processes, at the time when I interviewed (they've gotten a lot better, as they matured). Uber messed up my interview - I was supposed to interview for a mobile role, but I ended up doing a backend onsite - and apparently at Skyscanner forgot to send me a takehome that everyone else took (not that I minded). Skype was also super weird: I did a takehome, got some strange feedback and asking to make changes. I did them, heard no feedback for weeks, when I was asked to come for a surprisingly easy onsite. Here, I joined a team that did not exist and could not talk to my future manager or team mates, because they were all being still hired. So if it's a messed up process: that won't be the first.