On April 6 I wrote that I had an interview with a transportation data company. It was around nine when I got coffee at Starbucks and then went down to Bart with my bike. I went to MacArthur BART and rode San Pablo 45th before writing up Hollis to 59th.
I went through the lobby and parked. The manager met me at the door and we sat down in a conference room. Some of the early stuff we talked about was the same as the phone call a few days before.
He presented an open quality. Open to the idea of using exchanges. He took too long and I was perturbed but didn't show it. Eventually he introduced to the five people I would need and went and rounded them up.
The first two were the analysts. Their jobs were to manually go through all of the incoming data and fix it. They mentioned the database programmer's job and how they ran scripts to fix jobs. The senior analyst was really obviously complacent and Matt didn't say much.
The database programmer and the engineering intern came in and the former was like a robot. I couldn't believe anyone was capable of that type of demeanor. They asked questions and the intern tried to make up for the other’s attitude by asking super hard questions with a smile. I did a terrible job.
When they were gone the director came in and admitted knowing nothing at all about me and my background. After a short while I decided I would have a hard time interacting with him. He asked manager types of questions. I wasn't pleased at all with them.
When the interview was nearly over the manager came in and I started being concerned about my other commitments but I let him make his comments.
Much later in the day I sat down with my friend for a beer with some people that knew a lot about the data firm I had interviewed at. The five of us had good conversation. I told them about my interview and also let the founder - who had gone on to start a competitor - know about it and asked him some questions.
This series of experiences are conversations that I have had with knowledgeable people about my career or job interests. This Interview Series is meant to describe the basic elements of an interview and how I have gone about participating in one.
