This is not brief, but I hope it is helpful!
I had five phone interviews over the course of a month or so, and then seven in-person interviews at the onsite visit. The process was somewhere between "average" and "difficult" level - I opted to rate it as "difficult" because of the sheer number of total interviews; it's an endurance challenge!
Initial recruiter phone call: I had a full page of questions about the role and the company, and Sean was very helpful answering everything in my first phone call. I couldn't believe how much information we covered in 30 minutes. Thanks to Sean, glassdoor, and Great Place to Work, I had a positive impression of Tanium right away.
Technical screen: we talked about my current job. I did a deep dive into the full stack that we use, talked about some technical challenges that I've taken on, and answered some big picture business questions ("Why do customers choose you over X competitor?").
Coding interviews: we used Zoom's screen share and I used my own IDE with a JavaScript file that I created. If you are comfortable with leetcode's easy or medium level problems, you'll be in good shape for these problems. Then we talked about time efficiency and automated testing.
General phone interview: one final phone interview with the VP of Product Engineering; he gave me an opportunity to ask any lingering questions and address any concerns I had.
Onsite at Tanium HQ:
Blake was my Recruiting Coordinator through the process and so he was my host at headquarters. He was so positive and helpful, guiding me through the onsite day and making me feel welcome.
My two in-person coding interviews were first. The unusual question (which I think another glassdoor review alluded to) was a logic challenge to accomplish a simple task given a very restrictive set of commands/abilities. The other was a more standard leetcode-style question which I could do either on whiteboard or on computer.
I met with the technical recruiter for a little while, and then we went to lunch at the company cafeteria where I sat with some fellow engineers (and one of my morning interviewers). Very friendly crowd; it seemed like they enjoy spending time together.
My recruiters stopped by and said that David Hindawi (Executive Chairman and co-founder) had some availability right after lunch, so I finished up and went to meet with him. I told him about my educational and professional background, and what I was looking for in my next job. He told me his big dreams for the company's future and talked about how extremely important it is to him that they maintain the healthy company culture at Tanium.
In the afternoon, I had three more interviews with Director-level employees who have been at Tanium (and BigFix before that) for a long time, so I got perspectives from some senior individuals on the company and products.
Overall, interviewing at Tanium was a very positive experience! Things I appreciated:
- As a woman in tech, I was delighted to be interviewed by two women along the way! At other companies, I've gone an entire interview process without interacting with any other women at all.
- There were no tech trivia questions. I just demonstrated what I knew of my language by talking through my coding problem solutions. I didn't have to worry about not having the right facts memorized.
- There were no riddles/trick questions that depended on an "aha!" moment or tested irrelevant stuff.
- Everyone who interviewed me was smart but approachable, communicated well, and had great things to say about their experiences at the company.
