Fragen im Vorstellungsgespräch für User Operations Analyst bei Dropbox

I was contacted by a member of the User Ops team after submitting an application+internal referral; went through an initial phone screening interview where i was asked very typical questions posted by others (why did I choose my school, why Dropbox, what would I improve, favorite part, most used feature, no toaster question). A few days later, I was extended an in person interview at Austin. Very accommodating, went at the end of a week, interview was early afternoon, out after about 2 hours and talking to 4 team members+recruiter. Very relaxed process, not intimidating, people seemed interesting and the office was very laid back. Mix of process and personal questions (explain technical aspects simply vs. personal details)

I applied online and was asked by a recruiter to schedule a first-round interview with a senior member of the User Ops team. I had a overall negative experience, as the recruiters were very non-responsive and curt--especially for a startup company. In addition, my interviewer seemed very unimpressed with any of my answers, even though most of the interview was spent discussing a time-intensive assignment that had to be completed prior to the discussion. My experience has been very negative compared to the other tech firms (Google, Amazon) I've interviewed with.

Applied online which required a Dropbox account. Was contacted by email to schedule a phone interview. They use a single email address for all communication seemingly to shield unwanted contact. Once it was scheduled, I was emailed a spreadsheet of a sample set of ticket IDs, unix epoch times, and two letter country codes (which over half were blank). I wrote a script to convert the times and country codes to a human readable format, then organized the data to show number of tickets for every country on every day within the sample set. Created an Excel spreadsheet and made charts to visualize the data and then made a one page summary of my analysis. During the phone interview, it was made apparent to me that the interviewer did not review my spreadsheet and went only by my summary. I recapped my summary trying to give an estimation of how to organize their team with such poor data. It was very uncomfortable to make any recommendation as there's no indication of how their team is run. Interviewer seemed to stick to a well-rehearsed script, even when an introduction about themself. A day later, I was told they were not moving forward. BTW the source data and 'detailed' analysis is on github. Save your time and just use that, because they obviously don't value your time.

Don't waste your time applying to the User Ops position in San Francisco. As many others have said, it was blatently obvious from the first minute of the phone interview that I was not going to be hired for this position. The girl doing the interviewing sounded like she was reading from a script. She was very awkward and impersonal. She spent a significant portion of the interview telling (well, reading..) her life story, making sure that I knew she went to MIT, before finally getting around to asking me some questions. She asked why I chose my school and if I have any regrets about going there. I thought this was strange for 2 reasons: 1) I made that decision 8 years ago, so I don't see how that's a good indication of the person I have today, and 2) I also went to MIT! I highly doubt she even glanced at my resume before the interview. I thought I could use our shared alma mater to my advantage (because clearly it was something very important to her), but I can assure you that i received no preferential treatment. Her response made it perfectly clear that she didn't care where I where I went to school or what I had to say about myself. When it came time for my analysis, she asked me to read (verbatim) what I had written and sent in prior to the meeting (what was the point of sending it the night before if she wasn't going to read it??). I suspect this entire exercise was just to pretend they were interested in me. She asked a few follow up questions, to which I had answers prepared, but it was clear to me that she didn't care what I had to say. So why would Dropbox waste their time interviewing someone they clearly have no interest in hiring? There was one part of the interview where the interviewer seemed to be paying attention to me. She asked what I liked/disliked about Dropbox and what I would change. I STRONGLY BELIEVE THE ENTIRE PURPOSE OF MY INTERVIEW WAS TO SOLICIT USER FEEDBACK ABOUT DROPBOX. Well considering the 30-40 hours I spent researching the company, doing the analysis, making sure I knew everything about the service, and thinking about what I would do to make it better--I was probably an ideal candidate to offer feedback. Well played, Dropbox. However, I think Dropbox's tactics are pretty low, and I'm not at all sad that I didn't make it past the first round. I wouldn't want to work for a company that employs those tactics, or work with such impersonal, awkward co-workers. The only positive thing I have to say about the experience was that the recruiter was extremely friendly and responsive. So if you're interested in working for HR, I'd recommend applying! Otherwise, don't waste your time.

I applied through their website and was contacted via email 3 days later to set up a phone interview. They also sent me some data and asked me to write up a one page analysis before our call the next week. Be ready for behavioral questions (what do you want out of your next role? how did you chose your college?) as well as questions about Dropbox. I really did my research on them but felt they didn't give me a chance to show that. She sounded rather bored with me and ended the call early. I also put a ton of time in to my data analysis for them but she didn't seem impressed at all. Maybe I didn't go to a top tier school or maybe I sounded nervous. I guess it was good practice at least.