For the candidate
Your interview, explained honestly
A real data problem, a live conversation with a person, and a clear account of what is and is not monitored while you work.
Last updated: 10 June 2026
This page is for you, the candidate. It explains exactly what an Eigen-Rho interview is, what happens on your screen and in the background, what kind of help is welcome, and how to ask for an adjustment or raise a concern. We want this to be a hard interview that is also a fair one, and that starts with telling you the truth about how it works.
A trained human interviewer runs your interview and makes the hiring recommendation. The signals our software collects are advisory inputs to that person's judgment, never an automatic pass or fail. There is always a human watching, talking with you, and deciding.
What the interview actually is
You will work through a real business case using live SQL against a seeded database, right in your browser, while an interviewer joins you over a video call. It is meant to feel like the analytical work you would do on the job, not a memory test.
- You control the editor. Write your query however you like, in whatever order makes sense to you.
- You can run as many queries as you want. Running a query is never graded. Explore the data freely, check your assumptions, and iterate.
- You submit when you are ready. Only what you choose to submit is assessed.
- Your queries run on our server in a read-only, isolated database created just for your session. You cannot break anything, and you cannot see the answer key.
- The problem can change partway through. An interviewer may add a twist to the question while you work. This is normal and is meant to see how you think, not to trip you up.
When your work is scored, two separate results are produced: one for the SQL skill you demonstrated and one for interview integrity. They are kept apart and never blended into a single number, so strong work is read as strong work.
What is monitored, and what we never do
Because this is a live, proctored interview, a few signals are collected while you work so the interviewer has context. Here is the complete picture, stated plainly.
What we do
- Note when the interview tab loses focus or you switch away from it.
- Detect the presence of a second monitor connected to your machine.
- Record paste events into the editor.
- Track whether your camera is on or off, and run face-presence detection so the interviewer knows a person is present. This analysis runs in your browser; there is no identity matching and no face templates are stored.
- Measure typing rhythm as forensics only. We look at the pattern of how text arrives, not the content of what you type.
- Relay your live camera to the interviewer so you can have a normal conversation.
What we never do
- We never record or store your camera video. The live camera is relayed to the interviewer only and is never recorded or stored by us.
- We never send your microphone audio off your device. Audio stays on the candidate's device, and only a coarse voice-activity flag (quiet or voice) is transmitted.
- We never create or store face templates, and we never perform identity matching.
- We never claim to see your other applications or to know whether you are screen sharing elsewhere. We cannot detect that, and we do not pretend to.
- We never turn any of these signals into an automatic decision. They go to a person.
What help is allowed
We would much rather you ask than guess in silence. The interview is a conversation.
- Asking the interviewer clarifying questions is encouraged. Unsure what a column means or how to read the scenario? Ask. That is part of doing the work well.
- Talking through your approach out loud is welcome. We are interested in how you reason, not just the final result set.
- Using another person or an AI tool to produce your answers is not allowed. The point of the interview is to see your own thinking, and the integrity signals above exist to keep it fair for everyone.
In short: lean on the interviewer, not on outside help.
Accommodations
If you need extended time, a screen-reader-friendly setup, a different schedule, or any other accessibility adjustment, you can ask for it, and asking will not count against you. Tell your recruiter or the hiring company contact before the interview if you can, or raise it with your interviewer at the start of the session. If you would rather reach us directly, write to fairness@eigen-rho.com and we will help arrange it with the hiring company. We would rather adjust the format than measure you through a barrier that has nothing to do with the work.
A person makes the call
This is worth repeating because it is the heart of how we work. Your interviewer is a trained human who watches your session, talks with you, and forms a judgment. The skill score, the integrity score, and every signal described above are inputs that person weighs. None of them decides anything on their own, and none of them overrides the interviewer. The final recommendation is a human one, and it belongs to the hiring company.
If something feels wrong
If you think a signal was misread, if something went wrong technically during your session, or if you simply want to understand a result, you can raise it. Write to fairness@eigen-rho.com and tell us what happened. Because the hiring decision belongs to the company you applied to, some questions about an outcome are theirs to answer, but we will help you reach the right place and will look into anything that points to a problem on our side.
Hard, and fair
We are not going to pretend this is easy. A good data interview should stretch you, and this one will. What we can promise is that the difficulty is honest: the problem is real, the rules are the ones written here, a person is paying attention, and your skill is read on its own terms. Come as you are, ask questions, do the work, and let it speak for itself.