The technical interviews are designed to help you and your potential manager and team collect all the information necessary to decide. We want you to feel well-prepared at Zalando, so we have created these guidelines. If you have further questions, feel free to reach out to your Talent Acquisition Partner. We are more than happy to speak with you directly.
What to expect after you've applied
After your application is reviewed positively by the hiring team, the interview process for applied scientist roles at Zalando typically consists of several steps, depending on the seniority level:
- Initial call with a Talent Acquisition Partner,
- Interview with the hiring manager or a preliminary technical screening, or in some cases, both
- Final Interviews (typically between 4-5 interviews covering different focus areas)
- Live Coding interview
- System Design / ML engineering interview
- Science Breadth interview
- Science Depth Interview
- P&O Leadership (only for People Manager roles)
- Leadership & Scope / Collaboration & Impact
An average interview process takes about 3-4 weeks, depending on the availability of the candidates and interviewers. The method may vary depending on the role and department. For example, it may involve an additional tech talk (science presentation, topic of candidate’s choice -needs to be relevant to the job).
Connect with your Talent Acquisition Partner for the position you applied for to get more valuable insights.
Let's take a closer look at each stage of the technical interview process
Initial call with a Talent Acquisition Partner (30min) - During this session, we would like to better understand your motivation, expectations, and accomplishments in your career so far. This will also help you better understand the position, the business area and the Zalando culture in general. Bring your initial questions on the position and Zalando culture to this call.
Hiring Manager interview (30 min to 1 hour) - On this session with your potential future lead, you’ll have an opportunity to share insights into your experience, your successes and how you overcame challenges. We are curious to hear how you approach your projects and understand how you collaborate with your team and other teams. Some more general technical questions may pop up depending on the Hiring Manager. They may also inquire about team processes and general business/domain understanding. This interview is also your chance to get more insights about the position and team you applied for. Ask questions - don’t be shy!
Coding interview (1 hour) - The scope of this interview will be to assess your coding skills when it comes to understanding the requirements, writing code to implement solutions, and performing data wrangling tasks are key capabilities of Applied Scientists. You will be asked to write code snippets for sample problems during the coding interview, typically using a live coding environment. You can expect interviewers to verify your ability to understand the requirements and ask clarification questions if any points are unclear. Based on your solutions, you will discuss trade-offs about the code structure, data structure choices you made, and your code's runtime and memory complexity. Additionally, you may be expected to solve data wrangling problems.
System design and ML Engineering (1 hour) - The purpose of this interview is to assess your ML system design ability. We need to ensure you possess adequate knowledge about significant parts of a large-scale ML system and pipeline and can effectively work with the engineering team.
Science Breadth interview (45 minutes/1 hour): This interview has been tailored to assess the areas where you can best contribute to the team. We encourage you to bring concrete examples from projects. The interviewer will evaluate your scientific problem solving skill and your level of understanding of the underlying science topics.
Science Depth interview (45 minutes/ 1 hour): The scope of this interview is to assess role-specific expertise and dive deep into specific subjects, e.g., deep learning algorithms and frameworks, data curation, and model evaluation. We will also evaluate your experience solving highly complex ML problems fitting the level you have applied for.
People Leadership (45 minutes, for People Manager roles only): In this interview, we emphasize assessing candidates' people leadership skills. This includes evaluating their ability to inspire and guide teams, manage diverse talents, and foster an inclusive and collaborative work environment. Candidates will discuss their approaches to hiring, conflict resolution, and promoting a culture of continuous learning and innovation.
Leadership & Scope / Collaboration & Impact (45 minutes): The scope of this interview is to assess your ability to communicate with leadership about an applied science project that you designed, executed, and evolved with the appropriate level of scope and business impact.
Here are a few general tips to prepare for your interview process at Zalando:
- Research Zalando's tech community.
- Understand the company's culture, commitment to Diversity and Inclusion and look at our company values in our Founding Mindset.
- Familiarise yourself with the technology and tools relevant to the role you applied for. The Zalando Tech Radar reflects our technology landscape.
- Find out more about the teams and leaders in our tech departments on the careers blog.
- Ask questions! Consider beforehand what you would like to know about Zalando from your potential manager. There is a lot of inspiration available online.
Now that you are all set
Overall, the hiring process for Applied Scientist roles at Zalando is designed to allow you to learn more about the role you have applied for, the culture, and your potential future manager. It also helps us assess your technical skills, problem-solving abilities, and communication and collaboration skills.
We want you to feel well-prepared, so don't be afraid to ask questions or reach out to your Talent Acquisition Partner for support throughout the process.
