Interviewing at Isilon, part 2: What we do

Lately I’ve interviewed and phone screened more and more people who have no idea what Isilon does or why they want to work here.

Part of that I understand. Isilon sells to enterprises, not consumers, so we don’t have a great presence even within tech. Heck, most people don’t even know what our parent company EMC does and they’re a much larger company (hint: it’s primarily storage). But there’s no excuse for not googling the company you’re interviewing with.

If you’re interviewing at Isilon for any job, particularly any position in engineering, go read “Big data meets big storage: an in-depth look at Isilon’s scale-out storage solution” at Ars Technica. It gives a fantastic overview of what makes our system awesome — a peek into our architecture and secret sauce. You’re by no means required to understand it all, but it’ll give you a base knowledge of our technology, a leg up on the interview, and points in your favor for being ahead of the game.

See also: Interviewing at Isilon, part 1: Why you should and Interviewing at Isilon, part 3: Who we’re looking for.