Student Rejected From Anduril Explains Interview Learnings

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Ibrahim Shah, a 22-year-old student studying computer science at the University of California, Irvine. It’s been edited for length and clarity. An Anduril spokesperson pointed Business Insider to cofounder Matt Grimm’s response on social media.

My dream is to build my own company. Palmer Luckey sold Oculus when he was only 21. I wanted to be at an organization where the founders are absolute killers, very technically gifted, and have bold personalities.

If I work at a company like Anduril, that means I’m super smart, and I also get to be in a culture that incentivizes taking bold bets, which would help me in my future as a founder.

I was applying for an early-career software engineering role. I went through phone screen and then had an interview, which consisted of a behavioral portion for the first half as well as a technical.

The phone screen went stellar. It was very casual. He asked me why I wanted to actually work at Anduril. I emphasized my desire to work at a company that has real impact, where we’re working with the US government and allies and saving lives.

After that, I had my first-round technical scheduled. I was very confident going in. I studied probably 80 coding questions for the past few weeks leading up to this.

The interviewer was pretty calm. However, while he was speaking to me, I was anticipating these technicals that were coming up, which are notoriously difficult at Anduril. I tried to calm myself down, which led to me sounding aloof and uninterested.

My tone of voice was not super bright and as emotive as it usually is. In the initial recruiter screen, I was super bright and happy and excited because I really wanted this opportunity, but I didn’t have the idea of a technical assessment clouding my mind.

I was anticipating really hard questions, and that’s pretty much all I was thinking about. If you were being interviewed for a role where you’re going to make life-changing money that would change the trajectory of your family, and it’s based off of whether you could solve some math and coding problems, that would probably make you a little nervous.

After the first recruiter phone screen, I could tell he really wanted me to get this role. When I read that text, you can see the disappointment in his words. My first reaction was: “Wow, this recruiter is amazing and actually took time to create real feedback for me.”

My other reaction was: “Oh my god, I can’t believe I ruined a life-changing opportunity for myself because I messed up the behavioral portion.” I felt very mad at myself.

My main takeaway is that it’s better to be nervous and authentic than to pretend like you have composure. Trying to manufacture a calm aura can take away from how you truly feel about a company.

In the future, I’ll completely compartmentalize my brain so I don’t think about what’s coming next. When the technical portion comes, then sure, I can become calm and aloof, because that does help me perform better and overthink less.

I initially posted it as a throwaway post, expecting to maybe receive a few comments from friends in the tech industry who would support me. It really blew up.

It seems like everybody is trying to interview me now, which is amazing. Perplexity has reached out and is interviewing me. Thinking Machines is also interviewing me. A myriad of other defense startups as well.

This is an amazing outcome.