I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Zest AI (Los Angeles, CA) in Mar 2026
Interview
First there was a recruiter call. Then I went through two rounds of interviews and got rejected. Interviews include technical questions and live coding. The coding part was easy. I answered all technical questions but still got rejected
The process moved slowly, and I had to follow up regularly for updates.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Common ds questions. (overfitting/underfitting, how to improve modelling results, how to interpret figures etc)
I was very disappointed by the interview process at Zest. After 9(!) interviews (just about 6 hours of interviewing) and a take home I spent longer on than I care to admit, they kept pushing back the date at which they would give me my final decision. And each time I had to follow up to find this out. Finally, in response to my final follow-up, they just said they are not moving forward. No feedback, no offer for a call to go over anything. I immediately responded asking for feedback and was ghosted.
It’s a shame because everything I heard from the people I interviewed with about the company was positive.
Had a phone screening with the recruiter who was incredibly nice. Met with the VP of data to discuss my projects, then had a coding interview a lead data scientist.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What was the biggest challenge you faced on this project?