Just a boring normal phone screen from HR. Smartsheet was recently acquired by a private equity firm. They tried to spin it positively, but it was easy to tell that it is not a good sign. Their product is a clear Airtable rip-off. Boring enterprise work management PM role. They offer 401k matching, but you have to stay for 3+ years for it to fully vest — not very attractive at all. Middling salary. No equity. Pithy of a bonus. One of their homework assignments was very clearly asking to try their software and then write a PRD for a new feature improvement. Why should I do free work on their behalf? It sounds like they wanted to capture me as a sales-marketing lead even more than as an employee.

Pretty straightforward. Had a phone screen with the recruiter then video screen with hiring manager (HM). Was very underwhelmed by the questions they asked. Nearly all the questions asked by the recruiter were repeated by the HM but with just more words. All of the questions dealt with my experience using 3rd party tools as a PM which is odd to me. Honestly felt more like they were doing user research on PMs to better understand how they use other tools than actually interviewing me for my skills.