I received a linkedin message from the recruiter. She called me in a few days and asked me if I am okay with taking challenge questions. The questions are hard and require some coding knowledge, probability, statistics, a good amount of organic peptide synthesis, plant pathology and molecular biology. Candidate is given 1 week to complete the challenge. I sent mine a little early in the day on the very last day (about 3:00 AM and the deadline was 10:00 AM) and had to follow up with them to ask them if they were able to grade mine. Turns out, it got lost in the shuffle and they were very appreciative of my follow up. They got back to me in about a week afterwards to let me know that I passed the first round of the challenge, and they would get back to me. But in the second round of eliminations I didn't make the cut so I wasn't able to get an interview. I was told that me not making the cut was one of the tougher decisions the team had to make. I was somewhat confident I would pass, but I guess I overestimated myself. If you haven't done much statistical analysis and organic synthesis in your PhD, you might not be able to get this job. While your degree might feel denigrated because you spend 40+ hours on a challenge only to hear "no", you shouldn't feel discouraged. I personally didn't have very many experts to talk to about the challenges, but I know I did my best. I know it's frustrating to hear "no" in an interview, and I have been hearing "no" in every interview I had in the past 5 months. However, I didn't have a negative experience. The recruiter I interfaced with was very friendly, cordial and professional. While I am sad I didn't get an interview, I would still apply for the sake of seeing what kind of questions you are likely to address while working there. I also appreciated the recruiter's kind words after I was told I didn't make the cut; I was told I would still be considered in the future for other openings. I'm not sure if this was part of the platitudes that people generally go through after getting rejected at this company, but I can tell you that they sounded genuinely happy that I took the time to do the challenge.

After learning a bit about the company, I was prompted to take challenge questions which were related to advanced topics in programing, chemistry, biology, statistics, etc. Scoring high enough will garner a typical 1 day interview with team members in the various teams.