Phone Screen:
Video call with an Engineering Manager. Questions mostly on background and recent experiences. Some pointed behavioral/situational questions.
1st onsite:
1st round was by an engineer. Some behavioral questions followed by questions on recent professional experiences. Interviewer also had questions on my management and interviewing style.
2nd round was by a senior engineer. 1st part was mostly behavioral. There were questions on building and growing teams, recruiting and retaining developers, etc. 2nd part was a whiteboard coding problem. The focus of the coding exercise was not to test for language semantics or API memorization, but rather a coding ability check. There was a little bit of back and forth with the interviewer, but I was able to provide two different approaches to solve the problem along with working code. I also had to provide time and space complexity analysis for my code.
3rd round was with the hiring manager. 1st part was a deep dive discussion on my most impactful project in recent years. The discussion quickly became quite technical and I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was very clear that my background and experiences aligned with the role. The discussion involved both high level design and some implementation details broadly in the large-scale distributed systems domain. 2nd part of this round was me asking a bunch of questions to the hiring manager.
2nd onsite:
1st round was with the VP for the org. He had questions on my management and leadership style focusing on the impact I have had as an Engineering Manager and how I run my teams on a day-to-day basis.
2nd round was with an SVP. He had questions probing my management style, ability to build and grow teams and the impact I could have at C3.ai if I were to come on-board. There were also some culture fit questions. He was very kind to give me a view into how C3.ai was growing business wise. I had questions around the company roadmap, culture, etc. that were all patiently answered.
Offer:
A few days later, I had a conversation with the hiring manger with further questions. Subsequently, they made an offer. Even though I had other companies (including some big-name ones) and another offer in the pipeline, I accepted the offer shortly after.
Closing Thoughts:
Some points really stood out during the interview process and had a role to play in convincing me to accept the offer.
1. Technology. C3.ai is working on some interesting challenges in distributed computing with technologies that interest me. It was obvious that this was a good time to come on-board since they are looking to scale both in terms of business and engineering.
2. Transparency. The hiring manager was very transparent regarding the hiring process, company culture, roadmap, etc. I greatly appreciated it.
3. People. I enjoyed the entire interview process and for the most part, it really felt like discussions rather than questions and answers. I really appreciated that the coding and design questions did not expect me to have memorized semantics and/or regurgitate answers but were structured more as discussions as I worked towards providing solutions. I also felt that the hiring manager was technically quite competent, and he had a passion for the success of his team and indeed for the company and its mission. Throughout the process he patiently answered all my detailed questions and he seemed like the kind of person I would like to work for/with. The SVP kindly providing a view into the growth map was also an important factor.
4. Culture. One of the cultural tenets of C3.ai is curiosity. The company actively encourages its employees to take external classes and programs. I am a strong believer in lifelong learning, so there is a very clear alignment here.
5. CEO. Even though I have never met Tom Siebel, from the conversations with my interviewers, I got the impression that he is prudent about growth and does not believe in scaling just for the sake of increasing headcount and/or valuation. I got the sense that he has a longer-term roadmap for C3.ai. Furthermore, the company policy of encouraging continuing education for employees clearly has his stamp of approval, as is evident from some of his talks, and quotes in news articles, which indicates that he wants his employees to succeed. C3.ai actually forgoes tax benefits as part of their learning reimbursement policy so that it is easier for employees. Obviously, this is all an outsider perspective based solely on news articles, recorded talks and conversations with my interviewers, but it was enough for me.
The whole process from start to finish took about 2 months. The relatively longer length of time was primarily due to my own logistical requirements. C3.ai was very flexible with scheduling.
