The first interview was a thirty-minute video call with the hiring manager. After that interview, I immediately received an email to schedule three additional back-to-back 30 minute video calls with various people on the team. The interviews were all straight forward, only one interviewer asked technical questions. They gave time for me to ask questions towards the end.

I went through 3 interviews. First with a screener, then the manager and lastly a panel. The whole process was good and everyone was really nice and communicative throughout the entire process.

I have interviewed with Zymergen twice now. The first time, I got all the way through the process before they decided to go with another candidate. About 6 months or so later they reached out to me a second time, presumably because they liked me and wanted to see if I would be interested in interviewing for a position in the same area but with a different title. I gladly accepted. I spoke with a recruiter and then the hiring manager with whom I had interviewed previously. I was told that my recruiter would follow up to set up a second panel interview. A week went by and I had not heard anything so I emailed the recruiter and asked how the process was going, reiterating that the hiring manager said I would hear from them about setting up the panel interview. I heard nothing back at all. I decided to email again a week later (two weeks since speaking with the hiring manager). This time the recruiter finally responded telling me that they decided to move forward without me due to my lack of experience with sunscreens. Mind you, I’ve interviewed with this hiring manager previously where we spoke on what sort of products I specialize in (which is not sunscreens) and this was not even brought up during this second interview with them. If they were wanting someone with sunscreen experience then why bother, knowing I have never worked on these products. I have no desire to interview again or be a part of this company. Initially they were very professional- personally calling to inform me I had not been chosen for the first position and later reaching back out to ask me to interview again for another position. However, this time they just dropped all contact then only responded after I had emailed multiple times to get an idea when we could set up a panel interview since the hiring manager told me this would indeed be set up. This just speaks unprofessionalism and disrespect especially because they did not mention this position was for formulating sunscreens and they already knew my background from previously interviewing me. I get that interviewing and turning down candidates is difficult, but it is not like I applied, and they said I did not have the qualifications; this was me interviewing for the second time and the hiring manager personally picking me out to interview again only for them to tell me they didn’t like that I didn’t have experience in this specific area when they knew my background. Heed all the bad reviews you see. It appears that these reviews are accurate and only being astroturfed by people claiming this is a good company to work for to boost their overall company rating.