I'll share more about the overall interview process below, but wanted to start off with an important note:
At some point pretty far along into my interview process, either the recruiter or an HR person from MasterClass contacted somebody they knew at my current company. This is typically pretty expected during the references portion of an interview process, however I was not yet at that stage. They contacted my employer without my permission nor my knowledge. Apparently they were inquiring about salary for a "prospective candidate", and even named me by name.
This ultimately made its way to my manager, but thankfully, my manager is very understanding and did not hold it against me. For somebody in a less forgiving situation, though, that information could have led to some pretty severe consequences.
I actually found out about it after my interview process was complete, but suffice to say, it left a pretty bad impression on me of how MasterClass handles confidentiality.
Aside from that, the process overall was relatively straightforward and generally positive. Here's a walkthrough of the process:
1. Call with a Recruiter
Pretty typical recruiter call. Didn't get too much into the actual skills of the role. The recruiter I spoke to was newer, so didn't have a ton of info on the org structure, processes, culture, etc.
2. Video Call with Hiring Manager
Straightforward interview asking about my experience. Also did a mini product exercise about my favorite product. But the hiring manager kept the focus more on the brainstorming of ideas side of things vs. the full product prioritization process.
3. Video Call with VP
Was a very casual call (borderline too casual?). The VP was taking the video call from their car. That being said, we had a great chat. It felt like more of a conversation than an interview. The VP was very nice, easy to talk to, and had a great product vision.
4. Virtual Onsite + Group Presentation
In prep for the virtual onsite, I was asked to prepare an 1hr 15min presentation for a given prompt ("Create a product roadmap for 2020-2021 to drive the community
and social experience on Masterclass"). They didn't provide a guideline/recommendation on how long to spend on it, but I probably spent way too long. In my opinion, a prompt asking you to "create a roadmap" is a bit ambitious to ask a prospective candidate. A roadmap is something you spend weeks if not months preparing and iterating on. I understand it was intentionally open-ended to allow the candidate to show how they approach problems, but I think a more practical prompt would have been to prepare 2-3 features for a given problem and explain reasoning in terms of the solution and prioritization.
The virtual onsite interviews themselves were fine. Mostly behavioral and culture focused than product focused. There was a bit of a mixup where I was given two Zoom ID's for the day, and one of the interviewers actually used the wrong one. It took ~10 minutes to get sorted out, but probably looked bad on me (Even though I was on the right Zoom ;) ).
The presentation itself, went okay. I made it known that I was fine with getting interrupted with questions along the way. That being said, some of these questions got us down a few rabbit holes and I had to scramble to finish in time towards the end.
SUMMARY
All in all, I thought the process was fine and nothing too out of the ordinary. The biggest issue I had was the fact that they reached out to my employer without my consent.
