I’ve applied to one of their experimentation data science roles and was contacted by recruiter. I had a 30min chat with the recruiter, learned more about the role and responsibilities and what they are looking for. After that I had a 30min introductory call with the hiring manager. It went really well, she was genuinely interested in my background and shared some example projects that they are working on. Then I was scheduled for a technical phone interview. Technical phone interview went great for me. I’ve answered all the questions right and to the point. I was asked very detailed and deep technical ML and NLP questions, which I wasn’t expecting but answered well because I have deep technical expertise in these areas, too. However, next day recruiter reached out to me saying that they don’t think my background is a good fit, I was literally shocked as I was expecting an onsite interview as the next step. I asked about feedback from the interviewer and recruiter said I didn’t do well on the questions regarding word2vec and L1/L2 regularization. I was shocked once again because L1/L2 regularization is the thing that I am most comfortable with since it was a part of my PhD dissertation. I’ve talked about the unit circles for both l1/l2, how one can be used for feature selection(lasso) whereas the other one can only provide shrinkage (ridge). Why l1is not differentiable at 0 while l2is differentiable and how that helps the algorithm to do feature selection. I went above and beyond for the regularization methods yet the feedback I get is saying that I didn’t do well on this. For word2vec, I’ve mentioned about the differences between cbow, skip-gram and their advantages and disadvantages, when to use which one etc. I was very disappointed with the outcome not because I wasn’t invited for the onsite but because when I answered all the questions correct and to the point yet they thought I am not the right fit. Not to mention that, even if I’ve applied and interviewed for the Experimentation role, I wasn’t asked even a single question on experimentation. I was asked NLP and very detailed ML algorithmic questions, which I am okay with, but I wish I’d known that that was going to be the interview. Anyways, overall it was a great experience and recruiters as well as hiring manager were really great. They made the process smooth and enjoyable. I wish things went on the other direction but I will keep applying for other roles in the future as I believe Netflix’s culture resonates with me quite well. I am sick of corporate BS cultures. Bring me something bold!

Recruiter call followed by a technical screen - thiry minutes conversation on metrics and tradeoffs of primary, secondary, guardrail metrics in a causal inference/experimentation setting. Interviewer was friendly and excellent.