├── images ├── MOLTing.png ├── AnalyticalCase.png ├── HiringProcess.png └── CampaignProcessCustomerOutreach.png ├── files └── product │ └── employees.mysql.sql ├── InterviewFeedbackandScoring.md ├── subsections ├── UniversityEng.md └── ExperiencedEng.md ├── RejectingApplicants.md ├── ProductDesignExercises.md ├── firstweeks.md ├── JobDescriptions.md ├── CandidateFeedbackSurvey.md ├── RecruitingExercises.md ├── AdministrativeExercises.md ├── TechnicalSupportExercises.md ├── DocumentationExercises.md ├── RecruiterPhoneScreen.md ├── HumanResourcesExercises.md ├── StructuringtheInterview.md ├── CRLInternship.md ├── ProductExercises.md ├── EngineeringExercises.md ├── LICENSE ├── SalesExercises.md ├── README.md └── MarketingExercises.md /images/MOLTing.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oldclesleycode/open-sourced-interview-process/master/images/MOLTing.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/AnalyticalCase.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oldclesleycode/open-sourced-interview-process/master/images/AnalyticalCase.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/HiringProcess.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oldclesleycode/open-sourced-interview-process/master/images/HiringProcess.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /images/CampaignProcessCustomerOutreach.png: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- https://raw.githubusercontent.com/oldclesleycode/open-sourced-interview-process/master/images/CampaignProcessCustomerOutreach.png -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /files/product/employees.mysql.sql: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | CREATE TABLE `employees` ( 2 | `emp_no` int(11) NOT NULL, 3 | `birth_date` date NOT NULL, 4 | `first_name` varchar(14) NOT NULL, 5 | `last_name` varchar(16) NOT NULL, 6 | `gender` enum('M','F') NOT NULL, 7 | `hire_date` date NOT NULL, 8 | PRIMARY KEY (`emp_no`) 9 | ) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8; 10 | 11 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /InterviewFeedbackandScoring.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Interview Feedback and Scoring 2 | 3 | After an interview with a candidate, the interviewer will always leave feedback. The goal of collecting feedback is to answer the question, "Would I want this person on my team?" 4 | 5 | At Cockroach Labs, we use a 4 point scale: 6 | 7 | - 4.0 Strong Hire - I feel strongly that this person will be successful in this role and am ready to present arguments why. 8 | 9 | - 3.0 Hire - I am inclined toward believing this person will perform well in this role. 10 | 11 | - 2.0 No Hire - I generally believe this candidate will perform poorly in this role but could be convinced otherwise. 12 | 13 | - 1.0 Strong No Hire - I strongly believe the candidate will be a poor performer in this role. 14 | 15 | In the interview feedback, the interviewer is asked to include general impressions, a brief description on what have experienced during interviews, where the interviewer stands and why they have this prospective. 16 | 17 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /subsections/UniversityEng.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Backend Interviews 2 | 3 | 1. **Technical Screening Stage** (1-3 hrs total) 4 | 5 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 6 | 7 | 2. **Onsite Interview** (5 hrs total) 8 | 9 | - Coding Interviews (1 hr x3) 10 | 11 | - Design Interview 12 | 13 | - Role-related System Design (1 hr) 14 | 15 | - Lunch (1 hr) 16 | 17 | # Frontend Interviews 18 | 19 | 1. **Technical Screening Stage** (1 hrs total) 20 | 21 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 22 | 23 | 2. **Onsite Interview** (5 hrs total) 24 | 25 | - Coding Interviews (1 hr x2) 26 | 27 | - Design Interview 28 | 29 | - Role-related UI Design and Coding (1 hr) 30 | 31 | - Choose Your Own Adventure 32 | 33 | - Lunch (1 hr) 34 | 35 | # Internships 36 | 37 | 1. **Technical Screening Stage 1** 38 | 39 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 40 | 41 | 2. **Technical Screening Stage 2** 42 | 43 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 44 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /RejectingApplicants.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Rejecting Applicants 2 | 3 | At any time during the interview process, the candidate can be rejected by the company or withdraw themselves from the process. The applicant will be notified by the recruiter within 3 days of the last interview stage to share our hiring decision and explain the next steps in the interview process. If the candidate asks for further feedback, it will always be related to the job requirements. We encourage candidates to use this feedback to see where they may still have room to grow. 4 | 5 | It is important to remember that Cockroach Labs is still a small company, so the requirements are specific and there are high expectations for every role. We want to make sure that everyone we hire is successful in their role, and if we feel there is any misalignment with the role, we would rather not move the candidate forward at that time. 6 | 7 | The recruiter will send out a feedback survey to all candidates within 2 days of their onsite interview. This information is used to improve our candidate experience. 8 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /subsections/ExperiencedEng.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Backend Interviews 2 | 3 | 1. **Technical Screening Stage** (1-3 hrs total) 4 | 5 | - Take-home Exercise (1-2 hrs) 6 | 7 | - Take-home Exercise Phone Interview (1 hr) 8 | 9 | **OR** 10 | 11 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 12 | 13 | 2. **Onsite Interview** (5 hrs total) 14 | 15 | - Coding Interviews (1 hr x2) 16 | 17 | - Design Interview 18 | 19 | - Choose Your Own Adventure (1 hr) 20 | 21 | - Role-related System Design (1 hr) 22 | 23 | - Lunch (1 hr) 24 | 25 | # Frontend Interviews 26 | 27 | 1. **Technical Screening Stage** (1 hrs total) 28 | 29 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 30 | 31 | 2. **Onsite Interview** (5 hrs total) 32 | 33 | - Coding Interviews (1 hr x2) 34 | 35 | - Design Interview 36 | 37 | - Choose Your Own Adventure (1 hr) 38 | 39 | - Role-related System Design (1 hr) 40 | 41 | - Lunch (1 hr) 42 | 43 | 44 | # Internship Interviews 45 | 46 | 1. **Technical Screening Stage 1** (1 hrs total) 47 | 48 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 49 | 50 | 2. **Technical Screening Stage 2** (1 hrs total) 51 | 52 | - Paired Programming Exercise (1 hr) 53 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /ProductDesignExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for product design positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title: Design Exercise/Portfolio Panel Discussion (60 minutes)** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** You will review the take-home exercise with your interviewer and be prepared to discuss one of your portfolio projects. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** Be prepared to discuss your design process with your interviewer and how you arrived at your design choices for the take-home project. For your portfolio discussion, please choose a project with a visual focus. 8 | 9 | ## **Title: Cockroach Demo and User Focus (60 minutes)** 10 | 11 | - **Objective:** Your interviewer will demo our internal database-as-a-service and ask you for feedback on usability and approaches to user testing. 12 | 13 | - **Candidate Prep:** This exercise will help us understand how you communicate with engineers, how you think about product, and your approach to user experience. Be prepared to discuss how you would vet your design choices against customer groups with different needs. 14 | 15 | ## **Title: Product Thinking and Problem Solving (60 minutes)** 16 | 17 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to decide how a product will work based on basic physical characteristics we will share with you during the interview. 18 | 19 | - **Candidate Prep:** This exercise focuses on how you solve problems. Feel free to collaborate with your interviewer and ask questions as needed. 20 | 21 | ## **Title: Design Process and Discussion (60 minutes)** 22 | 23 | - **Objective:** This exercise will be a discussion of your design process from concept to creation. You will also discuss research, project management, and past experiences in design. 24 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /firstweeks.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## Your First Weeks at Cockroach Labs 2 | 3 | In order to make sure that you can ramp up at a reasonable pace, we've developed MOLTing, or Month of Learning Things, to help you get familiar with Cockroach Labs and our processes as you settle into your role. As it turns out, molting is also the process that baby cockroaches go through to become an adult cockroach, mirroring out onboarding process. 4 | 5 | ![](images/MOLTing.png) 6 | 7 | ## Onboarding at Cockroach Labs 8 | 9 | At Cockroach Labs, we use our onboarding period to focus on getting new Roachers up to speed with Cockroach Labs and our product, CockroachDB. 10 | 11 | On Week 1, we start off understanding how we operate at Cockroach Labs and why this opportunity to build a database is special. Over the course of the week, we begin to understand a bit more about CockroachDB. If you’re unfamiliar with what a database is, we’ll start you off there, but if you’ve worked with databases before, we’ll share a deep dive into how ours works. 12 | 13 | On your second and fourth weeks, we give you an introduction into how other teams work at Cockroach Labs. The goal is to give you insight into what others teams do to support our mission of Make Data Easy. It’s a way to highlight work and roles that you may be unfamiliar with but also share ways that you can collaborate and support those departments. 14 | 15 | We onboard new hires every 2 weeks to keep a consistent onboarding cycle and to have new hires join with others. We know that ramping up at a new company takes time, so we encourage you to use your first month to learn, digest and ask questions. 16 | 17 | **Resources** 18 | - [Welcome Docs: Getting Started at Cockroach Labs](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/onboarding-starter-projects/) 19 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /JobDescriptions.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ### Job Descriptions 2 | 3 | At Cockroach Labs, we want to ensure our job descriptions give you a clear picture of the role for which you’re applying. Goals of our job descriptions: 4 | 5 | 1. Insight into the primary responsibilities of the role and the team with which you would be working. 6 | 2. Give you an understanding of the experience you need to be successful in the role. 7 | 3. Set clear expectations for your first three months. 8 | 9 | We run each of our job descriptions through [Textio](https://textio.com/), a text analytics platform that helps us use language that is inclusive to all and helps you envision yourself working with us at Cockroach Labs. We try to make sure the tone of our job descriptions is neutral rather than masculine or feminine, to make sure that our job descriptions resound equally with candidates of all genders. 10 | 11 | We include an equal opportunity statement on our job description and hope that candidates choose to fill out the optional EEOC questionnaire. Asking these questions will help us discover any stages of our interview process that may be affecting certain groups of people, and with that data, we can ensure that our interview process is fair for candidates from all backgrounds. 12 | 13 | While we may use specific job titles on our jobs page to help candidates find our open positions, internally, we standardize job titles to drive equality between people in a specific job function. For example, no matter whether you are an engineer working on our core, SQL, or admin UI engineering teams, your internal job title will be Member of Technical Staff. This system also allows our employees to focus more on what they need to do to achieve company, team, and personal goals, rather than focusing on what they need to do to get to the next job title. 14 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /CandidateFeedbackSurvey.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | At Cockroach Labs, we strive to aim high and build to last. Part of that process is getting feedback from candidates on what's going well and what we can be doing better. After candidates come onsite with us, we send out the following 2-minute survey via CultureAmp [CultureAmp](https://www.cultureamp.com/)): 2 | 3 | 4 | ## Overall Impression 5 | 6 | - Overall, my recruitment experience at Cockroach Labs was positive. (yes-no) 7 | 8 | - The recruitment process gave me good insight into the company's mission, culture, and values. (yes-no) 9 | 10 | - From what I experienced, I can see myself working at Cockroach Labs. (yes-no) 11 | 12 | - I would encourage my friends and colleagues to apply to Cockroach Labs. (yes-no) 13 | 14 | - What impressed you about Cockroach Labs? (free-text) 15 | 16 | - What is one thing we could do to improve the recruitment process? (free-text) 17 | 18 | 19 | ## Busting Bias 20 | 21 | - I felt that the interviewers were able to assess my knowledge, skills, and abilities required for the job based on the exercises we completed rather than my resume. (yes-no) 22 | 23 | - The job description was influential in affecting my decision to join Cockroach Labs. (yes-no) 24 | 25 | 26 | ## Interview Experience 27 | 28 | - I was satisfied with the timeliness and responsiveness of my recruiter. (yes-no) 29 | 30 | - After talking with the interviewers, I got a good sense of the objectives and expectations of the role. (yes-no) 31 | 32 | - The interview experience gave me a clear understanding of what it would be like to work at Cockroach Labs. (yes-no) 33 | 34 | - My interviewers gave me the opportunity to ask my own questions. (yes-no) 35 | 36 | 37 | ## Extra Information 38 | 39 | - Please let us know if there is anything else that you would like to share about your recruitment process. (free-text) 40 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /RecruitingExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for recruiting positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title: Kick-off Meeting for Android Developer** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** As part of your take-home exercise, you will prepare a kick-off and search for an Android developer, including criteria and sourcing. Onsite, your interviewer will act as the hiring manager for this role and will review your kick-off materials. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** We ask that you establish a clear process for the position, including a job requisition, a process overview, and breakdown of responsibilities between recruiter and hiring manager. 8 | 9 | ## **Title:** **Extending an Offer** 10 | 11 | - **Objective:** You will extend an offer to a candidate with compensation details we provide you with on-site. 12 | 13 | - **Candidate Prep:** It is important to ask any questions necessary to begin your offer conversation with enough information. Think about what might motivate a candidate's job search and how to make the most compelling case possible. 14 | 15 | ## **Title:** **Pipeline Development for a Product Manager** 16 | 17 | - **Objective:** You will prepare a kick-off and search for a Product Manager, including criteria and sourcing. Your interviewer will act as the hiring manager for this role and will provide you with the details of the search. 18 | 19 | - **Candidate Prep:** For this exercise, think about what questions you ask a hiring manager in order to understand their needs and who they would like to target. Consider what tools you've found most effective for sourcing. 20 | 21 | 22 | ## **Title:** **College Recruiting Event** 23 | 24 | - **Objective:** You will plan an info session at the University of Waterloo. 25 | 26 | - **Candidate Prep:** For this exercise, consider how to effectively engage a college audience, your goals for the event, and what you should do before, during, and after the event. 27 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /AdministrativeExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for administrative positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title: Activity/Event Planning (1 hour)** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** You will brainstorm and plan a company-wide celebration following a major milestone. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** In order to successfully plan this event, keep in mind what you've learned about Cockroach Labs from your research and the interview process thus far. Consider what steps should be taken to ensure success before and during the event as well as what your event will accomplish for the company and your colleagues. 8 | 9 | 10 | ## **Title: How You Roll (via Insights Discovery) (1 hour)** 11 | 12 | - **Objective:** For this interview, we are asking that you take a personality test based on Jungian psychology and a variety of psychometric models, Insights Discovery. At Cockroach Labs, we have every Roacher take the test so they can better understand how they operate as an individual and as part of a group. 13 | 14 | - **Candidate Prep:** Prior to the interview, you will receive an invitation to take the Insights Discovery test. You will be expected to complete the test and review the results. 15 | 16 | 17 | ## **Title: Cross-team Collaboration (1 hour)** 18 | 19 | - **Objective:** You will draft communication to various internal teams about a cross-team collaboration activity. 20 | 21 | - **Candidate Prep:** Candidate should review Cockroach Labs’ values. 22 | 23 | 24 | ## **Title:** **Engagement Strategy (1 hour)** 25 | 26 | - **Objective:** Reviewing your take-home exercise, you will revise our current regular internal engagement schedule and make detailed suggestions for improvement. 27 | 28 | - **Candidate Prep:** In this exercise, you will need to think about how to manage the varying needs of a diverse staff with frequent engagement. You should be prepared to thoughtfully communicate your plan with our employees. 29 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /TechnicalSupportExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for the technical support positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title: Github/Slack Technical Support** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** We will share a technical issue with you. This exercise will focus on reviewing a client issue and how you deal with its escalation. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** Keep in mind that you will be communicating with a client regarding this issue. Think about how you manage customer concerns while working to remedy their issues to prepare for this exercise. 8 | 9 | ## **Title: Take-Home Support and Sales Engineering** 10 | 11 | - **Objective:** You will be given support tickets to respond to from a phone support line, a public forum, and a public issue on GitHub. You will be asked to prepare a document or presentation detailing your approach to support and review it during your on-site. 12 | 13 | - **Candidate Prep:** To prepare for this exercise, think about tools you find helpful in the support process, how to streamline tickets from multiple channels, handling support for both clients and users, and how to organize support structures. 14 | 15 | ## **Title: Technical Learning and Competency** 16 | 17 | - **Objective:** You will learn about a technical concept or component related to CockroachDB from a member of our engineering team and use what you've learned to respond to a support ticket. 18 | 19 | - **Candidate Prep:** The purpose of this exercise is to assess how well you can learn unfamiliar technical concepts, ask questions to augment your understanding, and explain what you learned to a third party. To prepare, think about how best to effective gather information and synthesize it for a customer. 20 | 21 | ## **Title: Documentation** 22 | 23 | - **Objecitve:** You will review the take-home exercise and discuss your use of documentation to handle support in the past. 24 | 25 | - **Candidate Prep:** Be prepared to discuss how you researched and answered each question and to walk through Cockroach Labs' documentation more generally. 26 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /DocumentationExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for technical writer positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title:** **Technical Writer Information Design (60 minutes)** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to explain a topic of your choice to the interviewer. The topic can be anything you’d like, but make sure to pick a topic that you know a lot about - anything from how a database works, to how dogs are trained, to the work of a specific author. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** Before diving in, you should gauge your interviewer's knowledge level for your explanation. The interviewer will ask for clarifications, context, deeper explanations as necessary. You’ll have about 10 minutes to explain your topic. 8 | 9 | ## **Title:** **Technical Writer Technical Competency and Documentation 1 & 2 (75 minutes each)** 10 | 11 | - **Objective:** For these exercises, the interviewer (a member of the engineering team) will explain a technical concept to you. You will learn about the topic and then explain it back to the interviewer to ensure that you understand. You will then document the topic. You will then discuss the documentation with the interviewer. 12 | 13 | - **Candidate Prep:** This is an exercise rooted in listening, writing, and synthesizing. Be prepared to process the information your interviewer provides and document it in a manner that will make sense to a broader audience. Feel free to ask any questions that allow you to effectively structure your content. 14 | 15 | ## **Title:** **Technical Writer Editing** 16 | 17 | - **Objective:** We will share with you a draft of a raw piece of content. Your task is to edit it and present your revisions. 18 | 19 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be editing for clarity and readability, as well as identifying areas that could benefit from further detail, technical or otherwise. The edit does not have to be fact-perfect. This is a technical piece, and in the real world, you would have access to its author for clarifying questions. It does need to get across your vision for the piece and demonstrate your abilities as a writer and editor. 20 | 21 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /RecruiterPhoneScreen.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ### Recruiter Phone Screen 2 | 3 | We conduct recruiter phone screens for all positions. The phone screens typically take around 30 minutes and are conducted by the recruiter responsible for the position. 4 | 5 | At the beginning of the phone screen, the recruiter will let the candidate know that they will be starting the phone screen by learning more about the candidate’s background and experience; then giving the candidate an overview of the company, position, and process; and lastly, wrapping up the call with any questions the candidate may have. The following is a general outline that we use to guide our phone screens: 6 | 7 | **Introduction & Motivations** 8 | * Please provide a short overview of your current work and what you’ve done in the past. 9 | * What sparked your interest in Cockroach Labs? 10 | * What motivated your job search? 11 | * What is important to you in your job search? 12 | 13 | **General Questions** 14 | * What do you enjoy doing on a day-to-day basis? What work have you done that you are most proud of? 15 | * When have you taken a project across multiple disciplines, even ones you weren’t familiar with before starting on the project? 16 | * Tell me about a time when you were particularly proud of the balance you struck between completeness, polish, and timing. 17 | * Do you have any side projects that you are working on? (e.g. Github contributions, etc) 18 | 19 | **Engineers** 20 | * What % of your time do you spend doing development work? What do you spend the rest of your time on? 21 | * Additional questions will be determined with the hiring manager during the hiring kick-off meeting with the hiring manager. 22 | 23 | **Managers** 24 | * How much of your time do you spend making individual contributions vs. managing people? 25 | * What would your ideal time breakdown be moving forward? 26 | 27 | **Logistics** 28 | * What is your current work authorization? 29 | * What are your compensation expectations? 30 | * It’s important to note that compensation is discussed at start and end of the process but not in between. Compensation expectations are asked about during the recruiter phone screen. If expectations seem misaligned based on what is approved for the role, the recruiter will let the candidate know. Being a startup, we sometimes can not meet the expectations that a candidate may have. If expectations are aligned, then the topic of compensation won't resurface until an offer is extended. 31 | * Do you have any time constraints that we should be aware of (offers expected, vacations planned, etc)? 32 | * What other companies are you currently interviewing with? What step of the process are you in? 33 | 34 | **Recruiter: Walkthrough of basic company information, the role, and interview process.** 35 | * What questions do you have for me? 36 | 37 | At the end of the phone screen, the candidate will have a good understanding of the company, the role, timeline, and next steps. When still calibrating on a position, the recruiter will review the candidate’s pre-screen notes and resume with the Hiring Team before determining next steps. 38 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /HumanResourcesExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for human resources positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title: Open-Enrollment Planning (60 minutes)** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** You will be planning our next open-enrollment rollout using recently collected employee engagement data. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** This exercise will gauge how you approach benefits administration. For the interview, think about how you would put together a robust benefits package, key stakeholders in the plan's development, and how you would measure its efficacy. You should also keep in mind how you would develop a timeline and communication plan for the rollout. 8 | 9 | ## **Title: Setting/Measuring Initiatives (60 minutes)** 10 | 11 | - **Objective:** You will give an overview of your take-home exercise, in which you are to propose 3 initiatives for the People Operations team based on data you will receive with the take-home prompt. You will discuss your plan(s) in greater depth during this exericse. 12 | 13 | - **Candidate Prep:** You should be prepared to discuss your plan for the initiative(s) and how you would implement them. During this exercise, it will be important to consider how you would measure your initiative's success, how you would achieve employee engagement, and how you would communicate the initiative(s) to the company. 14 | 15 | 16 | ## **Title: Partnership and Performance (60 minutes)** 17 | 18 | - **Objective:** A candidate for this role is expected to be a successful business partner with our department heads. In this interview, you and your interviewer will discuss an employee who is struggling on the team. This is the initial meeting with the manager (your interviewer), who is presenting the employee issue to you. 19 | 20 | - **Candidate Prep:** In this exercise, you will strategize with the employee's manager regarding how to achieve the best-case-scenario for this employee, their team, and the company as a whole. You should serve as an advisor to the manager and feel free to ask any questions that will help you devise next steps for the employee. Keep in mind how you would ensure successful execution of your plan, communication best-practices during performance reviews, and potential outcomes. 21 | 22 | 23 | ## **Title: Cultural Initiatives (60 minutes)** 24 | 25 | - **Objective:** This interview will leverage the take-home exercise by planning a Learning and Development workshop around what aspects of company culture need to be improved most. You will be given a list of seminars and asked to make decisions on which to implement in order to make necessary improvements. Your interviewer will serve as a representative from a third-party professional development company. 26 | 27 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be demonstrating your ability to strategically target areas of improvement for our team. Be prepared to discuss with your interviewer how you will tailor these intiatives to both management and individual contributors, how you would communicate these intitiatives to the company, and why you decided upon your chosen workshops. Think about what outcomes you hope to achieve from these workshops. 28 | 29 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /StructuringtheInterview.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Structuring the Interview 2 | 3 | ## Before the interview 4 | 5 | - While the candidate is expected to review all resources available to prepare for the interview, our interviewers need to also prepare. We expect our interviewers to be clear on the skills required for the position. 6 | 7 | - Although the resume is not included for the interviewer, the level of the candidate is available in the public notes (i.e. junior, mid, senior). 8 | 9 | - The interviewer will also come prepared with a question strategy and approach to get data to assess the candidate’s fit for the position. For technical interviews, this includes coding, data structures, algorithms and system design. 10 | 11 | 12 | ## During the interview 13 | 14 | It’s important to remember that interviews are not natural, and it’s normal to feel a little apprehensive. At Cockroach Labs, we strive to be as friendly and open as we can by setting clear expectations and being transparent. Interviewers typically use the following structure but may vary based off of the question format. Visit department exercise files for more information. 15 | 16 | ### Opening (5%) 17 | 18 | - Set the Stage: Let them know who you are and what you do at Cockroach Labs! This is the time for you to build trust and establish an open, inclusive environment. 19 | 20 | - Provide the Interview Framework: “We are going to go through a series of questions, and at the end, I can answer any questions that you might have for me.” 21 | 22 | ### Interview Question (85%) 23 | 24 | - Get candidates talking: Getting candidates to open up and talk is the best way to get insight into their thought process and give them the opportunity to show their skills. 25 | 26 | - The questions themselves will vary based on the type of interview and role. Please see specific Interview Guides for breakdowns. 27 | 28 | ### Wind Down (5%) 29 | 30 | - Help the candidate reach a point of completion with the last question you asked. 31 | 32 | ### Close (5%) 33 | 34 | - Leave time for questions at the end. Be honest in your answers and give them real insights into how we work here that they can’t necessarily experience during their interviews. 35 | 36 | - Let the candidate know that we’ll be in touch about next steps (phone) or that the next person will be in shortly (onsite). A quick thank you is always a good way to finish up! 37 | 38 | ## Some tips 39 | 1. Communication is really hard in an interview setting. Candidates should give the interviewer access to their thought process by communicating it. The interviewers will provide prompts to help the candidate through questions if they get stumped. Our objective is not to challenge a candidate to the point of discomfort, rather, open up their mind to learn about how they solve problems. 40 | 41 | 2. We do not strive to assess perfect theoretical knowledge that the candidate can google when needed, or present a problem that took us 2 months to dominate and expect our interviewees to master in a 30 minutes conversation. 42 | 43 | 3. Come prepared. If you haven’t been interviewing, run through a couple of questions with your friends so that you get back into the mentality of what it feels like to answer interview questions. 44 | 45 | 4. Come with questions! The interviewer leaves time at the end of the interview to ask questions so please come with them and we will be prepared to answer as thoroughly as we can. 46 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /CRLInternship.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | ## What to Expect During Your Engineering Internship 2 | 3 | 4 | ## Resources 5 | 6 | **Mentor / Roachmate** 7 | 8 | Your Roachmate will be your Mentor during your internship at Cockroach Labs. During your first week at Cockroach Labs, your Mentor will sit down with you to lay out your starter project. The explanation will include not just what your project entails, but also a crash course on the existing components in CockroachDB. It’s tough to take all this information in at once. That’s okay! You should feel no shame in asking your Mentor to verbatim re-explain these details a day, a week, or a month later. 9 | 10 | You will be meeting with your Mentor weekly for 1:1s throughout your internship. Use this time to share what is going well or where you are stuck. In the beginning, they will also be using this time to share the culture, attitude, and expectations. Always feel encouraged to reach out to them with any questions regarding the office environment and the project that you are working on. They can also introduce you to other people in the company that you may be interested in working with. 11 | 12 | **Manager** 13 | 14 | The Manager of the team will also be accessible to your during your internship. This person will usually function as the Manager or the Tech Lead of the team. They will reach out to schedule monthly 1:1s with you to check in and see how your project is going. 15 | 16 | **Learning and Development** 17 | 18 | You are welcome to attend all and any Lunch and Learns, Reading Groups, Fireside Chats and workshops. During your last week, you will present the project that you have been working on for the duration of your internship. This will be treated as a Lunch & Learn. 19 | 20 | **NYC Stipend** 21 | 22 | Whether this is your first time living in NYC or you know the subway like the back of your hand, we want you to enjoy all of the fun that our city has to offer! Interns are granted $250 to spend over the course of their internship. Grab a fellow intern, your roachmate or your own NYC friend and start exploring! Below are some suggestions. Please expense your activities through Abacus, under Team Entertainment. Some ideas: 23 | 24 | - Food Tours 25 | - Museums 26 | - See a Broadway Show 27 | - Top of the Rock 28 | - See a comedy show 29 | - Chelsea Piers 30 | 31 | 32 | ## Feedback Timeline 33 | 34 | To set your expectations for your internship, here is a timeline of feedback loops leading up to receiving a potential offer to return. 35 | 36 | - 30 Day New Hire Survey 37 | - When: 30 days after your start date 38 | - Who: You 39 | - What: 30-day surveys are a great way for us to share whether your initial expectations of working at Cockroach Labs are being met. The intent is to learn more about what is going well and what could be going better. You will play an active role with how we can continue to make Cockroach a great place to work for Roachers. If you are interested in meeting with Chelsea to give more direct feedback about the program, please reach out to schedule time with her. Understanding how our employees work within our company allows us to focus on areas that are important to Roachers. 40 | 41 | - Mid Internship Check-in 42 | - When: Halfway through your Internship 43 | - Who: You and your manager 44 | - What: Your mid-internship check-in is a way for your manager to give you feedback on your internship and performance thus far. The check-in also lets you know if there are any skills that you need to develop or work on to receive a return offer at the end of your internship. 45 | 46 | - End of Internship Check-in 47 | - When: 2 weeks before your end of internship 48 | - Who: You and your manager 49 | - What: Prior to this meeting, People Ops meets with your manager to discuss your performance during your internship and prepare your offer, if applicable. During this meeting, your manager may extend an offer to you. 50 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /ProductExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | The following are exercises for product positions. 2 | 3 | ## **Title: Technical Work Experience** 4 | 5 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to pick a product (or feature) that you took from concept to public launch (preferably a technology-based product) and discuss this process with your interviewer. 6 | 7 | - **Candidate Prep:** As a product manager for a highly technical offering, it is important that you demonstrate your ability to collaborate cross-functionally, prepare and deliver on a roadmap, and negotiate between ideal-case product scenarios and external constraints. Keep in mind that you will be asked to discuss the technical aspect of the product, as well. 8 | 9 | ## **Title: Ops and Tools Takehome Exercise: MySQL Migration** 10 | 11 | - **Objective:** One of the most important things we can do to drive adoption is to make database migrations frictionless. In this exercise, you will migrate a single table from MySQL to CockroachDB and describe how this process can be improved. This entire exercise should take under an hour. You will also be asked to suggest improvements to this function and write user stories to explain it. 12 | 13 | - **Candidate Prep:** In addition to the migration you will perform, think about how you evaluate areas of improvement, drive messaging, and ensure that expectations are aligned with reality for a product or feature. 14 | 15 | ## **Title: General PM Takehome Exercise: Product Positioning** 16 | 17 | - **Objective:** Pick any feature from a B2B company and write a one page messaging framework about it. This should at least include: a positioning statement, target audience, elevator pitch, and three messaging pillars. You can read more about messaging frameworks on Google. (Here’s [an example from Salesforce](https://www.pardot.com/blog/how-to-create-brand-messaging-that-really-resonates/) to get you started). 18 | 19 | - **Candidate Prep:** In addition to traditional product management responsibilities, Cockroach Labs PMs are also responsible for positioning their features and producing raw content that can be leveraged by marketing and sales to help promote those enhancements. This exercise is meant to help us understand how PMs think about audiences, differentiation, and value creation. 20 | 21 | ## **Title:** **Product Case** 22 | 23 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to discuss product management basics and your favorite B2B product. 24 | 25 | - **Candidate Prep:** This exercise will gauge your excitement for product management and core competencies in the field. To prepare for this conversation, think about the product management discipline holistically and the role it plays in the products and services we use every day. 26 | 27 | ## **Title:** **Analytical Case** 28 | 29 | - **Objective:** You will be presented with a spreadsheet containing fictional telemetry and tasked with navigating and visualizing the data to understand adoption rates. 30 | 31 | - **Candidate Prep:** This exercise will help us understand how you use data to tell a story. Feel free to ask any questions that better prepare you to present all necessary information to your audience. 32 | 33 | ## **Title:** **Triaging Customer Requirements** 34 | 35 | - **Objective:** Be prepared to talk about two customer requests: one that made it onto the roadmap and one that did not. You will discuss how you made those decisions and managed the customer expectations either directly or indirectly through sales or some other team. 36 | 37 | - **Candidate Prep:** 38 | 39 | - Part 1: Discuss a time when a customer came to you with a feature request and you solved their underlying problem in a different way than they had originally requested. 40 | 41 | - Part 2: Tell me about a time when you said no to an important customer. 42 | 43 | ## **Title:** **Acceptance Testing** 44 | 45 | - **Objective:** In this interview, you will be assessed on your ability to understand complex features, break out high-level user stories, and test them both personally and with end-users. 46 | 47 | - **Candidate Prep:** 48 | - Part 1: You will brainstorm 2-3 user stories for a feature with the interviewer (the feature will be provided onsite and the user stories should include the persona, the need, and the motivation). You will walk through how you, as a product manager, would create a testing environment for confirming that the user stories were implemented properly and what areas you think would pay special attention to. 49 | - Part 2: How would you get customer feedback for this effort in order to increase the chance that it solves the original pain point? At what points during the product development cycle would you get this feedback? How would you collect this feedback in a way that was helpful to engineers? 50 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /EngineeringExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | Please note: We do not dive into the specifics of some of the questions that you will be asked during your interview. However, the following resources will give you insight into what to expect, the types of questions you make be asked, and how to prepare for the interview process. 2 | 3 | - [Engineering Interview Process](#engineering-interview-process) 4 | - [Coding Interviews](#coding-interviews) 5 | - [Design Interviews](#design-interviews) 6 | 7 | # Engineering Interview Process 8 | 9 | - [Experienced and Specialized Engineering](/subsections/ExperiencedEng.md) 10 | - [New Graduates and Interns](/subsections/UniversityEng.md) 11 | 12 | **Total interview time: 7-8 hrs for full time roles, 2-3 hours for internships** 13 | 14 | # Coding Interviews 15 | 16 | Coding interviews give the interviewer insight into your skills in the following areas: 17 | 18 | - Coding and debugging 19 | 20 | - Algorithms 21 | 22 | - Data Structures 23 | 24 | - Code Structure 25 | 26 | - Design 27 | 28 | 29 | All of our coding questions are technical concepts that our engineers focus on within their roles. While we don’t dive into the specifics of our coding questions, we encourage you to refresh core technical concepts. For all coding interviews, we recommend using a language that you are extremely familiar with rather than one that is new to you, like Go. 30 | 31 | ## Technical Screening 32 | 33 | As part of initial steps in the engineering interview process, you may be given the option to either move directly to a 1-hour paired programming exercise or complete a take-home coding exercise. If you choose the latter, you will be sent a unique CoderPad link (a web-based code editor/build environment) that contains the coding question as well as tips and test cases to get you started. The exercise typically takes about ~1 hour to code and ~1 hour to debug and polish. The intent behind the take-home exercise is to make it as close to an on-the-job simulation as possible, working on your own tools if you wish, on your own schedule, to create a familiar environment in which you can do your best work. 34 | 35 | Once you have completed the question, you will submit the link via our applicant tracking system for a member of our engineering team to review. They’ll be looking at correctness, the completeness of your test cases, and the overall structure, cleanliness, and readability of your solution. 36 | 37 | If the submitted solution looks good to the reviewer, we schedule a Google Hangout with the reviewer where you’ll revisit your code, again in a CoderPad session. We’ll ask you to extend the problem with additional or changed functionality by modifying your previously submitted code. We think this is more representative of what we do most in our day to day work: modify *existing* code to add new features or handle changing product requirements, as opposed to starting from scratch every day. 38 | 39 | ## Onsite Coding Interviews 40 | 41 | For onsite coding interviews, we will ask you to do a live coding exercise in either CoderPad or your own development environment if you prefer to bring your own computer. Before diving in, we recommend you take a moment and repeat the question back to the interviewer to make sure that you understand the question. For some problems, it can help to jot down your design or the flow of your solution on the provided paper before getting started with the code. 42 | 43 | If you get stuck, our interviewer will provide clarity or hints to help you get unblocked. Always think out loud and let us know what you’re working on or what you’re having trouble with. This not only invites the interviewer into your thought process but can help lead you toward the right path if things have gone astray. 44 | 45 | # Design Interviews 46 | 47 | Systems design interviews are important because they give us insight into how you think about scale, complexity, robustness, and performance. We expect you to know the fundamentals of system design. This interview is a discussion between you and the interviewer, leveraging the whiteboard. 48 | 49 | ## "Choose Your Own" Design 50 | 51 | All of our interview questions up until now have focused on a known problem that we are experts on here at Cockroach Labs. This question flips that script. Instead of the interviewer being the expert, the interviewer will be the student, asking the interviewee for an in-depth explanation of a design or project that they’ve worked on in the past. 52 | 53 | You are informed of the question beforehand and you are expected to be able to discuss the design of your choosing on a deep technical level. You should make sure to pick a topic on which you consider yourself to be an expert. 54 | 55 | ## Infrastructure Design 56 | 57 | You will be discussing the deployment of CRDB in a production environment as a service and how you would go through that process. You should be prepared to touch on security, alerting, monitoring, and access. For example, "how do you keep CRDB running?" 58 | 59 | ## Role-related System Design 60 | 61 | This question varies depending on the position for which you are interviewing. For example, if you are applying to the Full Stack role, you will have a different question from what engineers are asked if they are applying to the Backend role. 62 | 63 | While we do not disclose details of this question, we ask for engineers to think about large-scale system design and architectures that may be relevant for their position if you worked at Cockroach Labs. 64 | 65 | ## For SRE interviews, review the following: 66 | - Cockroach Labs Documentation: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable 67 | - Architecture Overview: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/stable/architecture/overview.html 68 | - Production Checklist: https://www.cockroachlabs.com/docs/dev/recommended-production-settings.html 69 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /LICENSE: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | CC0 1.0 Universal 2 | 3 | Statement of Purpose 4 | 5 | The laws of most jurisdictions throughout the world automatically confer 6 | exclusive Copyright and Related Rights (defined below) upon the creator and 7 | subsequent owner(s) (each and all, an "owner") of an original work of 8 | authorship and/or a database (each, a "Work"). 9 | 10 | Certain owners wish to permanently relinquish those rights to a Work for the 11 | purpose of contributing to a commons of creative, cultural and scientific 12 | works ("Commons") that the public can reliably and without fear of later 13 | claims of infringement build upon, modify, incorporate in other works, reuse 14 | and redistribute as freely as possible in any form whatsoever and for any 15 | purposes, including without limitation commercial purposes. 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Your interviewer will provide you with the verticals that they would like you to go after with the expectation that you will find three companies that fit the ICP. You will have a chance to ask the interviewer questions before you do independent research. 14 | 15 | **Candidate Prep:** You will have 20 minutes to identify 3 companies before the interviewer will come back into the room to discuss. To prepare for this interview, think about what online tools you would use to identify the companies. 16 | 17 | ## **Title: Campaign Process - Customer Outreach** 18 | 19 | **Objective:** Please create an outbound campaign of 3-5 steps funneling into the sales flow. 20 | 21 | **Candidate Prep:** Pick one company that you identified in your take-home and choose one person from the company that you would be communicating with. You will then build out an email campaign with messaging and intended actions for the person you identified. 22 | 23 | ## **Title: Project Management - Customer Outreach** 24 | 25 | **Objective:** This interview is a build on the Campaign Process interview. When an SDR creates a cadence, the process is not simply about starting and sending. It’s building a cadence that ensures the outreach is going to be successful and not sound like spam. Based on the 1-2 profiles that you built with the interviewer in the Campaign Process exercise, outline how you would tailor outreach based on your contact’s role at their company. 26 | 27 | **Candidate Prep:** Keep in mind that it is important for SDRs to send unique content to people in different roles and that the cadence will also shift depending on the role. Additionally, think about how would you determine if the content and cadences are effective. 28 | 29 | 30 | # Enterprise Account Executive 31 | 32 | ## **Title: Tech Approach & SE Relations** 33 | 34 | **Overview:** This interview dives into how Account Executives approach triaging aspects of the sales process. For example, if features don’t exist that a customer is looking for, how would you handle this from customer and internal angles? 35 | 36 | **Candidate Prep:** For this exercise, consider how you would balance customer needs and reasonable expectations for the technical team. In addition, think about how you communicate in delicate situations to maintain both customer and internal relationships as well as how you manage customer expectations. 37 | 38 | ## **Title: Campaign and BD Relations** 39 | 40 | **Objective:** You will give interviewer an overview of your cold outreach strategy. 41 | 42 | **Candidate Prep:** To close deals, you must turn leads into qualified leads, and then nurture them until they become a core or enterprise customer. Knowing who to reach out to within organizations, your process behind outreach and how to nurture leads are all very important. To prepare for this exercise, think about how you navigate objections, what tools you use for outreach campaigns, and your business development process more generally. You are encouraged to use the whiteboard. 43 | 44 | ## **Title: Field Sales Strategy** 45 | 46 | **Objective:** You will define and storyline your sales strategy. 47 | 48 | **Candidate Prep:** Driving revenue for any territory requires a well thought out plan. Knowing the customer, territory, product and strategy plan in advance will define your success and allow you to hit the ground running. Consider how to effectively develop a go-to-market strategy, what steps you would take throughout the process, and how you would structure deals. You are encouraged to use the whiteboard. 49 | 50 | ## **Title: Take-Home Mock Sales Presentation** 51 | 52 | **Objective:** You will select an enterprise infrastructure or technical software product that you know well or have sold before. The product need not be related to CockroachDB. It is best to select a topic that enables the candidate to demonstrate strong product knowledge and confidence. Please come prepared to sell the product to Square. 53 | 54 | **Candidate Prep:** The presentation portion of the interview should last 20 minutes. You should be prepared with a PowerPoint (or similar) presentation and present a business and value proposition with the intent of selling your software. Concepts of business and light technical value should be included, why they’re selling to you, value and should either present or be able to discuss competitors and why their solution is superior. 55 | 56 | # Sales Engineer 57 | 58 | ## **Title: Past Experiences with Databases** 59 | 60 | **Objective:** This exercise is a deep-dive discussion on your technical background and specifically, your technical expertise of databases. 61 | 62 | **Candidate Prep:** You should be able to explain what X component of a database is and then describe its trade-offs. Your interviewer should also learn from you what the technical reasons for the trade-offs are. You will be asked to discuss one of the four technical areas: feedback on monitoring, install, elastic scale out/scale in, or performance. 63 | 64 | ## **Title: Sales Process** 65 | 66 | **Objective:** Your interviewer will ask you to discuss lead generation, project management, competitive situations, and individual expectations in sales processes. 67 | 68 | **Candidate Prep:** Sales Engineers work closely with sellers and should have an in-depth understanding of the sales process and what is required. You should come prepared knowing how CRDB is different from other platforms and the benefits the product presents. 69 | 70 | ## **Title: Project Management and Product Knowledge** 71 | 72 | **Objective:** You will walk the interviewer through the take-home exercise and discuss the 4 objectives we shared with you. 73 | 74 | **Candidate Prep:** The objectives of the exercise are: 1. Describe the experience of installing and monitoring CRDB and the pros/cons to the approach you took 2. Describe your understanding of the pros and cons of CRDB’s distributed architecture 3. Failure scenarios: thoughts on how CRDB behaved when things went wrong 4. SE’s view on architectural constraints of CockroachDB design that resulted in observed pros/cons 75 | 76 | 77 | ## **Title: Documentation** 78 | 79 | **Objective:** In this interview, you will be led through a discussion on the organizational structure of Cockroach Labs' documentation. You will provide feedback on these docs and compare them to others you've seen in the past. 80 | 81 | **Candidate Prep:** Discussion on the organizational structure of the documentation. 82 | 83 | # Solutions Engineer 84 | 85 | ## **Title: Sales Process** 86 | 87 | **Objective:** This exercise is a deep-dive discussion on your technical background and specifically, your technical expertise of databases. 88 | 89 | **Candidate Prep:** You should be able to explain what X component of a database is and then describe its trade-offs. Your interviewer should also learn from you what the technical reasons for the trade-offs are. You will be asked to discuss one of the four technical areas: feedback on monitoring, install, elastic scale out/scale in, or performance. 90 | 91 | ## **Title: Past Experiences with Databases** 92 | 93 | **Objective:** This conversation is a deep-dive discussion on your technical background, specifically, your technical expertise of databases. For example, you should be able to explain what X is and then describe the trade-offs. The interviewer should also learn from you what the technical reasons for the trade-offs are. 94 | 95 | **Candidate Prep:** The interviewer will ask you to pick one of the four technical areas: feedback on install, monitoring, elastic scale out / scale in, or performance. 96 | 97 | # Sales Operations 98 | 99 | ## **Title: Take-Home Driving Insights & Forecasting** 100 | 101 | **Objective:** In this exercise, we will share the forecast of the revenue growth for the company with you. We ask that you look at this data and turn this into meaningful information that you can share with the board. On-site, you will review this presentation and discuss further considerations with your interviewer. 102 | 103 | **Candidate Prep:** It is encouraged that you use presentation format (e.g. PowerPoint or similar). 104 | 105 | ## **Title: Financial Burn** 106 | 107 | **Objective:** In this interview, you will look at financial statements and be asked to figure out how to take the last 2-3 quarters of financial statements to update the current model. 108 | 109 | ## **Title: Incentivizing the Sales Team** 110 | 111 | **Objective:** In this interview, we will be diving into how to set up sales compensation plans and incentive the sales force. We will provide you with sample compensation plans on-site. 112 | 113 | **Candidate Prep:** Think about effective ways to structure commission and provide detail on how to supplement it. Feel free to ask any questions needed to make thoughtful recommendations. 114 | 115 | ## **Title: Sales & Marketing Pipeline Analysis** 116 | 117 | **Objective:** Salesforce provides the one source of truth for sales and marketing to develop a well-understood, connected marketing and sales funnel for the business. There are many challenges in interpreting data, making it usable, and ensuring its integrity within Salesforce. 118 | 119 | **Candidate Prep:** Marketing and Sales want to understand what specific content and channels are generating the most successful sales opportunities. This will allow us to make smarter investments with the objective of constantly improving our ROI on marketing dollars spent. Think about how you would build reporting specific to various marketing and sales stages (what tiers would make up the core funnel?), common Salesforce challenges, and how you ensure and enforce data integrity using this tool. 120 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /README.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | 2 | # Open Sourced Interview Process 3 | 4 | - [Getting Started](#getting-started) 5 | - [Interview Process and Timeline](#interview-process-and-timeline) 6 | - [For Candidates - Applying to Cockroach Labs](#for-candidates---applying-to-cockroach-labs) 7 | - [For Recruiters - Resources](#for-recruiters---resources) 8 | - [Challenging Our Unconcious Bias](#challenging-our-unconscious-bias) 9 | - [Exercise Based Interview Questions](#exercise-based-interview-questions) 10 | - [Contributing to the Interview Process Guide](#contributing-to-the-interview-process-guide) 11 | - [Life After the Interview](#life-after-the-interview) 12 | 13 | ## Welcome to the Cockroach Labs Interview Process 14 | At Cockroach Labs, we are exploring new ways to structure our interview process to create familiarity for candidates and account for bias, resulting in a better candidate experience and hiring decisions. Instead of asking questions based on past performance or hypothetical future situations, we focus on assessing the skills you’ll use in your role with exercise based interviews. 15 | 16 | **Why are we open sourcing the interview process?** 17 | 18 | - **To help candidates feel prepared:** If you spend the time to research Cockroach Labs and our interview process, we will be thrilled. We think that if candidates spend the time to prepare for engaging discussions with the team, they will be ready to do the same when they join the team! 19 | 20 | - **To usher in a new standard of interviewing and transparency:** We want to encourage founders, recruiters, and everyone involved in the hiring process to think outside the box regarding the interview process. We want candidates to get a realistic preview of what’s to come in their role at Cockroach Labs by setting up relevant simulations and scenarios. We are always asking ourselves, “what else can we be doing to provide candidates with a process that is fair and inclusive?” 21 | 22 | 23 | - **To collaborate.** Let’s challenge our bias *together*. Let’s all pledge to do better than we have before. We welcome feedback on our interview process and encourage anyone reading this to contribute your ideas to our process as well! 24 | 25 | Learn more by reading our blog post, ‘[Exercise Based Interviewing at Cockroach Labs](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/exercise-based-interviewing/).’ 26 | 27 | ## Getting Started 28 | 29 | The following content will provide both candidates and recruiters with valuable information. 30 | 31 | **For Candidates:** 32 | 33 | - You will leave with a thorough understanding of the interview process at Cockroach Labs, along with visibility into real questions from our onsite interviews. Our recruiters will provide you with interview preparation specific to your role throughout the recruiting process. 34 | 35 | - Please note, around 10-20% of each interview is spent on a curve-ball question that we do not include in the exercises. While you can come prepared for a majority of the interview, we also like to see how you think on your feet. 36 | 37 | - Throughout your time interviewing, we encourage you to share your thought process with your interviewers. Discussing *why* and *how* you developed a solution will put your creativity and approach to problem-solving on display! 38 | 39 | **For Recruiters:** 40 | 41 | - Leverage the Cockroach Labs interview process and questions for your company’s hiring process. If you would like access to the curveball questions or rubrics, please reach out direct to recruiting@cockroachlabs.com, and we will be happy to share them with you. 42 | 43 | - Contributions to the Cockroach Labs Interview Process are welcomed and encouraged! Please see Contributing to the Interview Process Guide below. 44 | 45 | ## Interview Process and Timeline 46 | 47 | #### Overview 48 | 49 | ![](images/HiringProcess.png) 50 | 51 | We aim to have our interview process take an average of 3 weeks from start to finish. Between each step of the interview process, we ask for at most 3 business days for us to to make a decision, but at any point during the interview process, please feel comfortable reaching out to us for updates on your candidacy. 52 | 53 | Throughout our interview process, it is important to remember that after the Recruiter Phone Screen, the candidate's resume and the recruiter's notes will not be shared with the hiring team. This is one of the ways that we focus on the skills candidates show during the exercises rather than their past experience. Learn more about this here: "[How We're Fighting Unconscious Bias](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/blog/fighting-unconscious-bias-cockroach-labs/)." 54 | 55 | 1. **Candidate Application:** Applicants receive an automated message from the Applicant Tracking System (in this case, [Greenhouse](https://www.greenhouse.io)) to confirm receipt of their application. The note thanks them for submitting their information and contains a Cockroach Labs Company Guide that gives applicants an inside look into the company culture. 56 | 57 | 2. **Candidate Application Review:** The recruiter for the position will do the first round of evaluations and review application submissions. If more information is required, a member of the team will reach out to the applicant directly. Candidates that are disqualified at this stage will be notified by the recruiter. 58 | 59 | 3. **Recruiter Phone Screen:** If the candidate qualifies for the role, the recruiter will send an availability request for a 30-minute call to explore their background and experience. Depending on the outcome of the screening call, the candidate will either be rejected or proceed to a take-home exercise or a technical phone interview. 60 | 61 | 4. **Take-home Exercise and/or Phone Interview** 62 | 63 | - **Take-home Exercise:** The take-home exercise typically takes 1-2 hours to complete and allows the hiring manager or a member of the team to review a candidate’s skills before proceeding to the next step of the hiring process. The take-home exercise replaces one onsite interview, equaling one hour of engagement. 64 | 65 | - **Phone Interview:** The 1-hour phone interview with a member of the team covers skills related to the specific role or to review the take-home exercise. For technical phone interviews, we use Google Hangouts and [coderpad.io](http://coderpad.io/) and cover coding and debugging, algorithms, and data structures. 66 | 67 | 68 | 5. **In-person Interviews:** The next step in the interview process is an onsite interview. The onsite interview team consists of people that would be on the candidate's direct team and people on cross-functional teams, too. The recruiter will share an overview of the team members with whom the candidate will be meeting. The interview itself has 4-5 exercise based interviews, with a break in the middle for lunch with a member of the team. Each session runs an hour long, including lunch, which is a time for candidates to take a break, relax, and get a feel for our culture at Cockroach Labs. 69 | 70 | 6. **Candidate Survey:** Once the candidate comes onsite, the recruiter will send the candidate a link to complete our candidate survey. By filling out this short 2-minute survey, candidates help us iterate on our interview process. 71 | 72 | 7. **Hiring Committee Review:** After the onsite interview is complete, feedback from the interview process is shared across the interview team. Interview team members review the feedback and independently reach a decision of hire/no-hire based on the comprehensive feedback. At the HC review, the interview team reaches a consensus on whether to reject the candidate or proceed with reference calls. 73 | 74 | 8. **Reference Calls:** The recruiting team will make reference calls for promising candidates. At a minimum, two reference calls will be completed. One should be a candidate's manager and the other someone someone who has worked directly with the candidate and can speak to their past work. 75 | 76 | 9. **Final Review:** After successful reference calls, the recruiter submits the employee packet to the CEO and Hiring Manager for final approval. 77 | 78 | 10. **Offer Extend:** The recruiter will reach out to the candidate to schedule time to connect and extend the formal offer. Initially, this is done verbally but is always followed by the written offer as described in the section on preparing offers. The Hiring Manager and interview team follows-up to answer any questions that the candidate may have, which will hopefully lead to the candidate accepting the offer. While we would love to know whether or not you'd like to accept an offer from us in 3 days as well, we are happy to extend offer deadlines up to one month, so that you can make the best decision for you and your family. 79 | 80 | 11. **Offer Accept/Onboarding:** If the candidate accepts the offer, the onboarding process begins. 81 | 82 | ## For Candidates - Applying to Cockroach Labs 83 | 84 | The best way to apply for positions with Cockroach Labs is directly through our careers page, where we list all of our open roles. If there is not a role open that looks interesting to you, we encourage you to reach out to us directly at recruiting@cockroachlabs.com and check back with us in the future as we continue to grow. 85 | 86 | To apply to Cockroach Labs: 87 | 88 | 1. Go to our [careers page](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/careers/). 89 | 90 | 2. Check out our mission, core values, and benefits on your way to our list of [open roles](https://www.cockroachlabs.com/careers/#jobs). 91 | 92 | 3. Click on the team you'd like to join, choose the job you'd like to do, and review the description of the role. 93 | 94 | 4. If the role sounds interesting to you, fill out the application form at the bottom of the page, then click the "Submit Application" button. 95 | 96 | ## For Recruiters - Resources 97 | 98 | These files provide a deep-dive into the various stages of the interview process. It is important that recruiters tailor each stage to the position they are hiring for. Stages included: 99 | 100 | - [Job Descriptions](JobDescriptions.md) 101 | 102 | - [Recruiter Phone Screen](RecruiterPhoneScreen.md) 103 | 104 | - [Structuring the Interview](StructuringtheInterview.md) 105 | 106 | - [Interview Feedback and Scoring](InterviewFeedbackandScoring.md) 107 | 108 | - [Rejecting Applicants](RejectingApplicants.md) 109 | 110 | - [Candidate Feedback Survey](CandidateFeedbackSurvey.md) 111 | 112 | ## Challenging our Unconscious Bias 113 | 114 | In the effort of building a diverse workforce, at Cockroach Labs, we ask the question: "are we missing strong candidates because of preconceptions or unconscious biases of the interviewer?" To challenge our bias, we have committed to: 115 | 116 | 1. Exercise based interviewing 117 | 118 | 2. Removing resumes 119 | 120 | 3. Expectations based job descriptions 121 | 122 | Our hypothesis is that a structured and fair process means better decisions. We understand that it is impossible to eliminate all biases, so we want to make sure that we are aware of them and challenge them in whatever ways we can. 123 | 124 | ## Exercise Based Interview Questions 125 | 126 | The purpose of an interview is to obtain information about a candidate in order to predict future performance. To accomplish this, we rely on Exercise-Based Interviewing. Exercise-based interviews can include case studies, group exercises involving role play or discussions, individual exercises, or presentations. They allow for our interviewers to witness the direct application of a candidate’s abilities to competencies required for the role. Rather than guess if a candidate can do the job based on their answers to behavioral questions, we ask for candidates to show. During the interview, candidates are asked to complete exercises that are similar to the initiatives they would complete when actually working in the position on a day to day basis. 127 | 128 | For engineering positions, we use coding and system design questions. For non-tech, we use job-based simulations in the form of case studies, individual exercises, and/or presentations. 129 | 130 | For more information about the different exercises we use in our interview process, please review the different department areas. 131 | 132 | - [Administrative Exercises](AdministrativeExercises.md) 133 | 134 | - [Documentation Exercises](DocumentationExercises.md) 135 | 136 | - [Engineering Exercises](EngineeringExercises.md) 137 | 138 | - [Human Resources Exercises](HumanResourcesExercises.md) 139 | 140 | - [Marketing Exercises](MarketingExercises.md) 141 | 142 | - [Product Exercises](ProductExercises.md) 143 | 144 | - [Product Design Exercises](ProductDesignExercises.md) 145 | 146 | - [Recruiting Exercises](RecruitingExercises.md) 147 | 148 | - [Sales Exercises](SalesExercises.md) 149 | 150 | - [Technical Support Exercises](TechnicalSupportExercises.md) 151 | 152 | ## Contributing to the Interview Process Guide 153 | 154 | If you’d like to contribute an interview exercise, please follow the template below, then either submit a pull request on the correct file for the departments listed or email it to recruiting@cockroachlabs.com to be added to the file. Please note, if the department file does not exist, email recruiting@cockroachlabs.com so that we can create it for you. 155 | 156 | **Interview Exercise Template:** 157 | 158 | **Title:** 159 | 160 | - **Overview:** 161 | 162 | - **Set-up:** 163 | 164 | - **Part 1:** 165 | 166 | - **Part 2:** 167 | 168 | - **Considerations:** 169 | 170 | - **Follow-up Question:** 171 | 172 | - **Prompts (if any)** 173 | 174 | - **[Not included] Curveball Question:** The curveball portion should be an extension of the interview that shows how the candidate thinks on their feet. This portion is not shared with candidates as we want to evaluate how they respond to a problem to find a solution. 175 | 176 | ## Life After the Interview 177 | 178 | We believe that setting you up for success does not end with the hiring process— our commitment to ensuring that you are well-prepared to join our team is the cornerstone of our onboarding program. If you would like to explore what onboarding and your first few months at Cockroach Labs might look like, feel free to browse our documentation. 179 | 180 | - [Your First Weeks at Cockroach Labs](firstweeks.md) 181 | - [What to Expect: Engineering Interns](CRLInternship.md) 182 | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- /MarketingExercises.md: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1 | # Marketing Exercises 2 | 3 | - [Events Marketing Manager](#Events-Marketing-Manager) 4 | - [Marketing Manager](#Marketing-Manager) 5 | - [Creative](#Creative) 6 | - [Product Marketing](#Product-Marketing) 7 | - [Demand Generation](#Demand-Generation) 8 | 9 | # Events Marketing Manager 10 | 11 | ## **Title: Planning for re:Invent tradeshow** 12 | 13 | - **Objective:** As part of our marketing plan for re:Invent, a major tradeshow in the IT industry, we have secured a booth in the main exhibit which comes with a set number badges for our team to attend and staff the booth. Your task is to make a plan for the management and execution of the event. 14 | 15 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be developing a budget-driven plan to maximize our outcomes and lead generation. With this goal in mind, think about what actions you would take ahead of and during the event. Please be prepared to discuss how you would set goals for lead collection and measure success. 16 | 17 | ## **Title: Campaign Development** 18 | 19 | - **Objective:** In this exercise, we will share a report our team developed on cloud service performance. Your task will be to develop a campaign to ensure the report's visibility. 20 | 21 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be choosing which strategies and channels to leverage to promote the report. Think about how you will measure your campaign's success, what resources you will need to execute, and how you would ensure that the guide remains useful over time. 22 | 23 | ## **Title: Prioritization** 24 | 25 | - **Objective:** As the Events Marketing Manager, you will often be juggling both expected and unforeseen requests. Some of those tasks can be completed immediately and others require more planning. Understanding how to manage and invest time to maximize your output is a critical skill set in this role. 26 | 27 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be ranking a list of priorities in order of most urgent to least. Consider and be prepared to discuss your strategy for prioritization, what actions you might take as part of prioritization, and any relevant considerations. 28 | 29 | ## **Title: Event Promotion** 30 | 31 | - **Objective:** Hosting events is an integral part of our marketing strategy. Not only do events help us evangelize the product, they also allow us to engage with the open-sourced community in a more intimate setting. 32 | 33 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be organizing a meet-up for engineers and our Open-Source community to learn more about our technology. Please keep in mind what considerations you would consider critical to successfully executing a community event, how you would promote the event, and your timeline for event planning. Additionally, think about how you can make this event have a lasting impact upon its attendees and our objectives as a company. 34 | 35 | 36 | # Marketing Manager 37 | 38 | ## **Title: Blog Content & Collaboration** 39 | 40 | - **Objective:** You will be tasked with extracting information from the interviewer (in this case, the Chief People Officer) and then will be asked to use this info to create an outline for a blog post. The topic of the post will be provided once onsite, but it will surround Cockroach Labs values, so please take a look at our careers page. 41 | 42 | - **Candidate Prep:** The purpose of the exercise is to see how you work across teams. We will be leveraging the blog as a medium for this discussion. For this exercise, you should think about how to effectively structure content, serve as a partner to your colleagues to meet shared goals, and the frequency and methods you would use to promote the content you create. 43 | 44 | ## **Title: Project Management - White Paper Launch** 45 | 46 | - **Objective:** The content marketing team will be publishing a white paper (e-book) on network 47 | latency impact on application performance. You will walk your interviewer through the process from creating the 48 | paper through 30-days after it has been published. 49 | 50 | - **Candidate Prep:** You will be developing a plan of action for outlining, writing, publishing, and ultimately promoting a white paper for the company. Ahead of this exercise, you should think about how you would ensure the paper's production on schedule, who should be involved in the process, and how you will promote it upon publication. 51 | 52 | ## **Title: Content Editing** 53 | 54 | - **Objective:** As part of this exercise, we will share with you a draft of a blog post (provided onsite) that will run 55 | on our blog. Your task is to edit it and present your revisions as well as a publishing and promotion strategy. 56 | 57 | - **Candidate Prep:** The Cockroach Labs Blog provides an under-the-hood look into the architecture, design decisions, 58 | and culture at CockroachDB. Editing and revising is a collaborative process. Many of the posts 59 | are written by engineers and edited by the Director of Marketing and peers with the goal of attracting readers, informing prospective users about our product features, and creating evangelists out of every member of our team. With this goal in mind, think about how you would edit material for promotional purposes. You should also be prepared to discuss how best to roll out a new post and make sure people see it. 60 | 61 | 62 | # Creative 63 | 64 | ## **Title: Integrated Marketing - Portfolio Review** 65 | 66 | - **Objective:** Your will select a multi-asset campaign from your portfolio to review with your interviewer. These could be multiple assets from an event, ad/sponsored campaign, digital and print assets from a launch, etc. 67 | 68 | - **Candidate Prep:** Some examples of assets include: web page + booth + printed assets or; Ads + email + webpage + printed content or; Infographic + ads + guide. It is encouraged that you share a campaign that includes print, digital, and environmental media. If you do not have an example of this, no worries! Bring what you would like to share the most. Be prepared to explain the design decisions you made to connect multiple assets to a single campaign. What were your objectives throughout the campaign and what steps did you take to achieve them? Think about what your creative process and how you ensure your collaborators' success, as well. 69 | 70 | ## **Title: Product and Creative Engagement** 71 | 72 | - **Objective:** In this interview, we will ask you to demonstrate how you can take real product screens and extract the core visual elements that communicate their value to users. You will then be asked to produce three low-fidelity images to visually describe the product's functions. 73 | 74 | - **Candidate Prep:** The interviewer will give you a real product screenshot. Your goal is to make this consumable on the web for prospective downloaders. You are encouraged to ask questions to better understand product functionality and synthesize it for an audience. Please note that you can use the medium with which you're most comfortable, so feel free to bring your computer or other device! 75 | 76 | ## **Title: Brand and Systems Management** 77 | 78 | - **Objective:** You will have a conversation with the Chief Marketing Officer surrounding two core competencies needed for this role: 1) how you leverage your skills to maximize marketing effectiveness for highly technical solutions and remain consistently on brand and 2) How you deliver on-brand creative while ensuring a fast creative shipping environment. 79 | 80 | - **Candidate Prep:** As a creative designer, you would serve as a primary voice and stakeholder for the Cockroach brand. As such, this role involves overseeing the design and execution of all digital, print, display, and collateral content. Being at a young B2B company, you will have to make smart decisions in a fast-moving creative environment. Given that CockroachDB is a highly technical product in a highly technical industry, we target two personas: developers and IT decision-makers (such as Chief Architects and CIOs). Getting these audiences' attention is particularly challenging-- they are jaded and marketing wary. Visual brand consistency is important to developing a solid brand ID with the limited promotional vehicles available. Think about how you approach design to meet the above-mentioned goals. 81 | 82 | ## **Title: Take-home Exercise and Onsite Review: Email & Landing Page Design** 83 | 84 | - **Objective:** Your task is to redesign the email and landing page for a campaign promoting Cockroach Labs content with an eye towards making clear calls to action and communicating efficiently to inspire engagement. Once onsite, you will be asked to explain your process and decisions while completing the take-home exercise. You will also be asked to bring an additional piece of work to share with the interviewer and discuss it. 85 | 86 | - **Candidate Prep:** Driving lead activity is a critical element of marketing’s role within Cockroach Labs. Our content is a great asset for engaging our prospects and the community, but if they aren’t aware of new content, then its value is underleveraged. For this exercise, you should think about how to effectively direct your audience, layer content to convey its relevance, and ensure that your landing page supports engagement. Make sure to leverage the Cockroach Labs style guide to ensure brand consistency. 87 | 88 | Once onsite, you should be prepared to discuss your creative process, what you hoped to achieve with your work, and how you went about accomplishing that goal. More generally, think about how you take designs from concept to reality and how you collaborate with others throughout the creative process to achieve success. 89 | 90 | 91 | # Product Marketing 92 | 93 | ## **Title: Take-home Exercise & Onsite Review - Competitive Positioning** 94 | 95 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to summarize CockroachDB's three primary product positioning and competitive advantage points. Once onsite, you will be asked to whiteboard a competitive matrix reflecting your thoughts on our three primary competitors and how we best measure up against them. 96 | 97 | - **Candidate Prep:** As a newer entrant to the database space, Cockroach has unique elements that can help define our key points of difference against entrenched database companies and other, newer entrants. We’d like to understand your ability to parse the differences and discuss your thoughts on how to position CockroachDB in the market. We will provide you with content and resources to help prepare you for this exercise. 98 | 99 | ## **Title: Sales Enablement** 100 | 101 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to walk your interviewer through the steps of creating a full go-to-market campaign and discuss how you would prepare the Sales team to execute it. 102 | 103 | - **Candidate Prep:** Sales enablement and finding the correct models to reach prospective customers are critical requirements for this role. In order to effectively target new customers, our marketing team must provide the sales team with necessary tools to spread our messaging. For this exercise, think about how you would tailor a go-to-market campaign to our primary audience, the industries Cockroach labs should be targeting, and how we should target them. You should also keep in mind any necessary considerations for campaign project management. 104 | 105 | ## **Title: Story Lines** 106 | 107 | - **Objective:** For this exercise, we will provide you with a list of feature additions slated for CockroachDB's upcoming release. You will then be asked to strategize story development ahead of our next release and develop a collaboration plan to work with the product team on marketing activities in the future. 108 | 109 | - **Candidate Prep:** For this exercise, you should think about how you develop storylines to engage users and generate excitement. You should also be prepared to discuss your plan for working with the product team to streamline product marketing efforts moving forward. 110 | 111 | ## **Title: Integrated Marketing - General** 112 | 113 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to walk your interviewer through how you would develop an integrated marketing strategy. Specifically, your plan will focus on systems, processes, and ideas on collateral you would create to move these efforts forward. 114 | 115 | - **Candidate Prep:** You just brainstormed positioning ideas with your interviewer. Let’s say, hypothetically, that you came up with the perfect story and are ready to start producing content in the context of this positioning. Your strategy should be specifically focused on wide-adoption, not sales enablement. To prepare for this conversation, think about who you would target and how, developing a scalable marketing process, and how you would ensure that your campaign can be modified over time. 116 | 117 | 118 | # Demand Generation 119 | 120 | ## **Title: Campaign Creation** 121 | 122 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to assemble a multimedia, multichannel campaign for lead generation surrounding GDPR (https://www.investopedia.com/terms/g/general-data-protection-regulation-gdpr.asp). The content you create in this portion will be used for the Marketing Content & Creative exercise below. 123 | 124 | - **Candidate Prep:** For this exercise, it is a good idea to acquaint yourself with the most effective methods for marketing across a number of different channels. You should think about who you'll target and why, how you will ensure your campaign's success, what tools you will use throughout the campaign, and how you collaborate with key stakeholders in the marketing process. 125 | 126 | ## **Title: Marketing Content & Creative** 127 | 128 | - **Objective:** You will review the content from the campaign exercise with your interviewer and build an outline of a marketing campaign to generate leads and get prospects to the event. 129 | 130 | - **Candidate Prep:** In this role, you will need to leverage existing content (blogs, whitepapers, videos, training) as content for campaigns for different channels and purposes (marketing emails, events, ads, etc.). Consider how you would differentiate content depending on the medium and adapt existing content to increase lead generation. 131 | 132 | ## **Title: Sales Funnel** 133 | 134 | - **Objective:** You will give the interviewer an overview of marketing attribution and ROI models you’ve built in the past. 135 | 136 | - **Candidate Prep:** In this role, you’d be working closely with our sales team to help build out new channels for lead generation and uncover which channels are most effective for lead generation - this includes word of mouth, email marketing, SEO, and conferences / trade shows. Once we’re utilizing new channels, it’s crucial to analyze what’s working and build attribution models. Please prepare for your interview with these goals and guidelines in mind. 137 | 138 | ## **Title: Take-home Exercise & Onsite Review - Ads Strategy & Content Leverage** 139 | 140 | - **Objective:** You will be asked to suggest 2-3 campaigns with specific content, channels, and rationale using our existing content to target Chief Architects for lead generation purposes. 141 | 142 | - **Candidate Prep:** The Cockroach Labs marketing department has a strong content focus that has guided much of the marketing activity to date. We would now like to focus on the decision-making layer of our target audience, which means that we must reach Chief Architects and those in related positions. With these goals in mind, we ask that you be prepared to demonstrate how you would leverage our existing content to develop a variety of lead generation campaigns targeting Chief Architects. Vital considerations for this exercise are campaign structure and sequencing, strategies for measuring campaign performance, and quantifiable goal-setting. 143 | 144 | ## Title: Marketing Analytics 145 | 146 | - **Objective:** You will review our web traffic analytics with your interviewer and discuss ways that this data can be used and/or improved for marketing campaigns. 147 | 148 | - **Candidate Prep:** To prepare for this exercise, think about how web analytics can be used to guide and improve marketing efforts. Keep in mind what tools and metrics you find powerful for tracking campaign performance and how these analytics could be leveraged to track the campaigns you've conceptualized throughout your interviews. 149 | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------