They said they had too many people interviewing so they decided to use a third party interviewing service called "Karat" for the phone screen. They said it was going to be a good experience. Unfortunately I did the Karat interview (which is slightly different than a regular interview). The Karat interviewer said just take your time and finish the problem and don't worry about efficiency. So I took their word and coded the best 3 answers to the 3 questions I could. Got a canned response from them a few days later saying I didn't pass. I asked them for feedback and they said I didn't have optimal solutions, and I asked them why their Karat engineer said writing the optimal solution wasn't something I had to worry about. The person on the other end apologized and said I could reach out in a year when they are hiring again, but thats never going to happen, such a waste of time. If you have a recruiter reach out for this company don't bother.

The interview process with Zume was great, I would highly recommend applying to anyone interested in the company. The recruiting team was perhaps the best I've ever worked with - very efficient, friendly, and sincere in their interest in my well-being. The onsite interview experience was also one of the better ones I've participated in. It was shorter than most (~4 hours) and had a well-balanced range of questions and topics. I was impressed with each employee that interviewed me. Lunch was provided, but unfortunately, it was a catered meal and not made by Zume's robots.

A third party recruiter contacted me over email. My resume was forwarded to the hiring manager. Hiring manager called me over video call. I had to wait for 4 weeks for next round of interview. There was another video coding session