I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Cloudflare (Lisbon, Lisbon District) in Jun 2020
Interview
I had a very pleasant experience with Cloudflare. I'd initially applied for a position in London in the Application Services team. I had a nice chat with one of the Software Engineers about general engineering culture and a coding interview with a Senior Engineer. I liked it because even though it tested my algorithms and data-structures, it wasn't a dull Leetcode problem. The feedback was good I was told but unfortunately the role had been filled.
The HR coordinator was very kind to circulate my resume internally and came back with an interested team. I had 4 more rounds of interviews with them: 1. Network Programming, 2. Pair Programming, 3. Distributed Systems and a very nice candid chat with the Engineering manager. The interviews were all very fun and engaging. I had a really nice time solving the problems because they approached it very close to a real world scenario. Every single interviewer was very friendly, seemed knowledgeable and encouraging. They were also happy with me working on my own computer and IDE. This seems like a small thing but I'm much more comfortable with vim than coderpad and it helped a lot.
I then got to meet the CTO, John for a chat. I was super excited to talk to him after doing a bit of research because he seemed to be a smart person steeped in so much computer science history. (He's also the guy who got the British government to issue a formal apology to Alan Turing).
After John, I waited a week to speak to the CEO and I must say it was worth the wait. It was a really really nice 20 minutes. Matthew was charming, humble, friendly and genuinely cared about my questions and from his response and attitude, about his employees.
HR was incredibly responsive. They kept me updated throughout the process and made sure I got good interview timings because I'm based in Singapore.
It's a 10/10 from me and by far one of the best interview experiences I've had.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
The questions were based on very real world problem solving. I was asked to write low level tcp servers, high level http API servers and even built an LRU cache in one of the initial interviews.
The process started with a recruiter call covering my background, interest in Cloudflare, and the role. The recruiter explained the team structure, hybrid work model, and the focus on Data Residency Architecture (DRA).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Walk me through your current project, then explain why you chose a regional architecture and the trade-offs around data locality and replication
solid, very nice interviewers, technical s were interesting and collaborative. Overall less leetcody than general and felt more like a conversation/ pair programming. Recruiters were very slow though. Most non coding interviews were very fluffy i.e just talk through your resume/ a project you worked on. There was an emphasis on how you like to work, i.e what youre looking for in both a team and work in general.
Total 7+ rounds. First recruiter round. Rejected after second round(hiring manager).
Recruiter round focussed on Cloudflare, comp details, rounds of interviews and few questions about profile
HM:
Why are you looking for a new role?
Why cloudflare?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
HM:
Why are you looking for a new role?
Why cloudflare?
Systems Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Cloudflare with 3 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 56% positive. To compare, the company-average is 35.9% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Systems Engineer roles take an average of 49 days to get hired, when considering 18 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Cloudflare overall takes an average of 39 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Cloudflare as a Systems Engineer according to 18 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 26%
One on one interview: 21%
Group panel interview: 18%
Skills test: 16%
Presentation: 8%
Drug test: 5%
Personality test: 3%
IQ intelligence test: 3%
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