Zattoo Non-Job/Internship Interview!
About a week ago, I had an interview with Zattoo, a local startup here in Ann Arbor. I had met their VP of Engineering, Dug Song at a career fair and ended up giving him my business card. I got an email from Zattoo about them being interested in an interview. I’m not looking for an internship anymore, but I figured I’d have a chat to get to know the company better in case I want to work there after I graduate.
I talked to two engineers. I can’t really remember their names now! Oops. But basically we talked about the technologies behind the service (it’s a real-time streaming tv service). It’s kind of interesting that they use P2P in order to distribute the live tv content. I thought this might end up with a pretty big delay in actually getting the content, but one of the guys said there was only a difference of ~20 seconds or so.
One of the things that their website job page lists is that they want people with an interest in social networks. While I thought this was interesting and figured they might have something specific in mind, apparently they’re just trying to get people with knowledge in the area to maybe generate some ideas and build new stuff. Seems pretty cool.
Something nice about this interview was that while it went like a typical job/internship interview (they asked me a question about some engineering problem I’ve faced and how I solved it), there was like, no pressure for me to really do well. I mean, besides the desire not to sound like an idiot to other people. I kind of liked having no pressure on me during the interview. I should probably pretend it’s like that for every interview I take, since I think I answered their questions pretty “well” regardless.
So yeah, Zattoo is a startup in Ann Arbor. One of the few interesting tech ones that I know of. Though there will be more. More on that later…
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Hi Hung, Thanks for taking the time to chat with us! Our screening calls aren’t the same as our full interviews, which are structured, team-oriented, and honestly, pretty hard. But you’re right about us not really pushing people for “right” answers – we’re more interested in how people think, what excites them, how they communicate with a team, and what they can do, right now, on a whiteboard – and while some questions obviously have correct answers, it’s the ones that don’t that are more telling. Honestly, it sounds to me like you’re ready for something outside of school. Freedom awaits! BTW, our streaming delay is well under 5 seconds – which is not coincidentally the duration of our channel switch ads. And we do have concrete plans for many things we unfortunately can’t disclose in a screening call without an NDA, but could discuss in a full interview.
My pleasure. I’ve gotten pretty used to companies telling me they can’t tell me stuff, so it’s cool. I remember my Apple interview was kind of difficult because when it got to the “ask me some stuff” part, all the questions I had were answered by “we don’t discuss future Apple products.”
Mr. T.: Good luck on the un-university front…sounds like you know what you’re talking about to me. I would hire you, and will do so if an opening for a computer nerd opens at my school. How does $8.47 an hour to start sound? Meanwhile, think it worth mentioning that the hotel we just stayed at in Hanoi was on “Hang Truong” street. And yes, we picked that hotel primarily on the basis of what street it was on. scot
scot: I would pay good money for a photo of this alleged “Hang Truong” street. Maybe I should move to Vietnam, where I might enjoy huge amounts of success from having streets named after me; no matter that the streets were already named to begin with. Though I suppose that “Hung Truongs” there are a dime a dozen. Not that I’d think of doing any human trafficking for dimes. That’s just ludicrous! $8.47 starting sounds good, as long as there are perks. Like infinity swimming pools and large rooms full of balls. Plastic balls.