I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Slack in Mar 2017
Interview
Started with a take home with one week to finish, Implement memcached 's get, set, delete,gets and cas functionality. After submitting the take home, I got a standard template from the recruiter saying that the code does not meet the standards. No feedback was given after you invest your time in it. Not worth interviewing if you are not given feedback. If they were so concerned, they could send an NDA.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Slack in Jan 2017
Interview
First I had a phone screen with a recruiter. The recruiter was pleasant and answered all of my questions regarding the internship. Then the recruiter asked me to complete a research exercise within the next 3 business days. The exercise consisted of creating a 3-week research program that would address a future challenge to Slack's mission. I completed the assignment within the time allotted. I was told that the recruiter would contact me after the research team had time (a week) to review the exercise. The recruiter, unfortunately, never contacted me back or provided me with any feedback about my proposal.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
During the phone screen I was asked about my research background, current projects and the ways in which my skills/expertise relate to the work being conducted at Slack.
I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Slack (Austin, TX) in Jan 2017
Interview
I was contacted within 2 days of submitting the application in Early January (was surprised to see their fast response!)
Recruiter was very friendly and outlined everything I could expect in the general call. The call itself was as expected -- questions about my interest in Slack, my interest behind product design, a rundown of two of my most recent work places on my resume, and what I'd been up to. My recruiter then outlined the structure of the internship program and told me I'd be moving forward and completing a design exercise for the next step in the process.
The exercise focused on a hypothetical company -- a video conferencing tool -- and I was given 2 problems I could solve within it. The problem I chose to tackle was centered on the fact that people tend to miss visuals during a video conference when they write notes, so how could this company make the note-taking process easier and more efficient.
The next step was presenting the exercise to a designer at Slack -- guiding them through your entire thought process and telling a story of a user and how they would use your proposed solution. The designer gave me great feedback and I implemented them in time for the next step: the Panel Presentation.
The panel was 3 designers at Slack, to whom i presented one of the projects on my portfolio, which they really broke down and asked me a lot of questions on. They were interested in knowing the reasoning behind my design decisions, as well as checking to see if I had thought about ways it could be mishandled, etc. Lots of what-if questions. Know your product and reasoning thoroughly!
After this step I had 2 individual interviews with the 2 of the same designers that were in the panel presentation. They asked me about what I hoped to gain out of this internship, behavioral questions, how I handle design and its different sides, areas that were my strengths and areas I could improve on, etc.
I received an offer a day after this last step.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
From the last round: "There are lots of steps within product design, such as research, prototyping, visual design, technical implementation.... Which step do you spend the most time in, and which do you see as your strengths?"