They are starting from scratch on ML. No infra to support/deploy large-scale ML deployment, No tech solution for visitor ID stitching. No CI/CD setup. But it seems they are very convinced that ML/AI gonna save their sinking business ship. The interview experience was pretty dull, Each threw one random question and then got really silent. I stopped many times to ask clarifying questions or do I need to go into details. Always ONE word response. one of the interviews seems super distracted as if he got somewhere to go or better things to do. I would avoid this company, it seems the interviewers are looking way out rather than staying put. BTW, all 5 rounds are conducted by white male interviewers...

I was interviewed by 5 white males, none of which who knew anything about ML, but all were very nice. One guy is getting his masters program in AI, and asked me a question about using images in our search models. Adding images didn't work in our models because most information was already incorporated indirectly by the text and product hierarchy, which I tried to explain why it didn't work. I think he was just fixated on the fact that it didn't work. Another guy was fixated on image embeddings, and I explained why it was not necessary for what we were doing. Again, he didn't like the answer. I guess they really, really really want images in every model. I was rejected for not using modern techniques. I appreciate the feedback, but this is what happens when you have conversations with people who don't have real-world experience in the model building process. They latch onto bits and pieces of what you have to say and fixate on the correctness of ideas versus having a real conversation about it.