The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Adyen (Singapur)
Interview
I liked the overall interview process. Adyen tends to focus on culture as much as your technical skills, which is rare in my opinion. I had 7 rounds out of which 1 was focused on deep-diving into my past work experience (culturally and technically) and projects, 2 were purely technical rounds and the rest were culture fit rounds.
Pros:
- relatively quick end-to-end process (even with 7 rounds)
- you get to interview with a board member (CTO in my case), which was very cool
- the interviewers were all quite friendly
- technical rounds focus on a variety of things, ranging from Algos, SQL, code review, unit testing and system design and scalability
- culture rounds help the interviewees understand a lot about the company, it’s a two-way conversation
Cons:
- there was a time or two where the next round was only available to be arranged the next day or day after, which is short notice
- you have to get past 7 rounds
- there is a lot of culture/Adyen formula related talk that comes up in almost all the interviews, which can seem a bit cult-ish if you do not resonate with it personally
Advice: Do your homework and read up on the Adyen formula beforehand as it will definitely come up in the interviews.
I accepted the offer and have had a very positive experience so far! Team is fun and helpful and there is a lot of independence offered in the work you do, no micromanaging. Culture is their strong point and you understand only once you join why they stress on it so much during interviews.
Interview questions [5]
Question 1
How do you reduce the latency between microservices?
I applied online. I interviewed at Adyen (Amsterdam) in Mar 2022
Interview
- no prior chat with recruiter, or hiring manager, no further explanations on the job or the team, etc.
- 30 min profile fitness interview with 2 engineers from other teams not aware of the team or the job, Although it went well, the interviewers reflected quite some randomness and questionable growth in the work they do. One of them felt very unhappy with lots of frustrations and not sure how to progress in the company.
- 1 hour technical interview with 2 engineers again from other teams and not aware of the target job. Presumably whiteboard session but no whiteboard shared at all. Again lack of empathy or sympathy or any logical progression, random wide and unclear questions, almost no interactions from the interviewers during the interview, failure to provide better scope or feedback on assumptions. The interview felt like a criminal investigation where you were already deemed guilty, or some sort of "do you like his face ?" kind of interview. The kind of people you would like to work with. Again if this shows something, it would hint to the limitation of their day-to-day satisfaction and the (lack of) sanity of the work environment.
In general, interviewers not ready for the technical interview, boring interviewers zero motivational for the company or the job, they felt like forced in the interviews and unhappy about this part of their job,
- Interview Feedback: interview feedback stating things that were not in the interviews, interviewers having preconceived assumptions and incorporating them in the interview feedback, recruiter making up stuff in the feedback that is not in any of the interviews feedbacks, recruiter admitting the several issues but not fixing or changing anything, and asking me that this will not affect my impression on the company. Of course.
Hints:
- make sure you get enough time at each interview to ask your questions
- ask about how they grew at Adyen (or not..)
- ask about their latest successes or challenges (if any..)
- ask about their frustrations
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- tell us about a project you did
- tell us how you would manage configuration
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Adyen (Amsterdam) in Nov 2021
Interview
Five step procedure, a lot of flexibility around dates. The procedure starts with a programming test. Then, this is the basis for the second interview. Rest of the interviews were mostly focused on my previous experiences.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you design a globally unique identifier?