I interviewed a while ago. The interview process was ok. It had some structure but was pretty repetitive as far as asking the same questions over and over. If you look at reviews it’s clear that they treat engineering interviews with more care than other organizations. After going through an on-site interview I received a standard rejection which was super impersonal, especially after all the time I spent getting to know the team. I think externally they try to come off as really caring about recruiting and candidate experience but for the candidate in process they deliver a different message, one that’s impersonal and not managed with care.

Never left a Glassdoor review before, but I had to create an account given how negative this interview experience was. I was referred in by an executive-level employee for a role on their talent team and met with their R4R recruiter, who I was familiar with in passing prior to the interview, and had heard negative things about from folks who had previously worked with her (was unsure if she would be my manager or not). Didn't want that to bias my interview as her and I had never interacted previously and we had a mostly pleasant conversation but there were some glaring red flags that left a horrible taste in my mouth post-interview. First, the interviewer showed up ~7 minutes late to the call, apologized with a "you know how it is", said that she hadn't read my resume or knew anything about my background/who referred me, and was multitasking the entire time. At one point, when I was going through my background I had a sense she wasn't paying attention and stopped and said "is there anything I need to clarify?" to which she replied: "huh? sorry, was getting a ping from. . .someone. . .and. . .I. . .need. . .to. . .answer. . .that. . .real. . .quick". So I wouldn't say I necessarily had a fair/unbiased interview at that point give the complete lack of attention being paid to me there. Second, when I had time to ask questions at the end (which was rushed because, again, she was 7 minutes late and had a back-to-back call), I asked: "How do you distinguish between someone who’s good in this role versus someone who’s great in this role?" and got a completely unrelated response about completing some sourcing homework (easy enough) but she also said, verbatim, "some of the things where people - we've seen patterns where people aren't successful here - if you've come from big companies like Google and Meta and Robinhood. Our environment is very different and it's unstructured. There aren't defined swim lanes and guardrails and templates. We're not looking to hire people from those companies.". Meanwhile, nearly *the entire recruiting team* comes from Google, Meta, or Robinhood. The entire recruiting team that this person hired. I asked how the team measures the success of the talent acquisition efforts and what KPIs they're using to evaluate the effectiveness of recruiting and was given an answer around "we're so busy that we don't have time to think about things like that" which is yet another enormous red flag. All-in-all, incredibly unimpressed by the unpreparedness of the interviewer. I won't pin this all on OpenAI as a company, but the R4R recruiter left such a negative impression that I pinged my referral and told them "thanks but no thanks" about moving to the next step. Unsure if I would have been moved forward anyway given how little attention was paid to me during the interview as it was.