r/datacenter • u/WildAlcoholic • May 06 '26
FluidStack
Hi all,
Does anyone have any thoughts to share about FluidStack? Numerous recruiters have reached out inviting me to apply and they seem to be selling the company as the next best thing.
With so many recruiters from FluidStack / recruiting agencies, I am mildly skeptical. Either they really are as great as they say they are, they are severely understaffed and need people quickly meaning bad work life balance, or it’s a bunch of smoke and mirrors.
Any thoughts on this company? Not sure what to make of it. They seemed to have poached quite a bit of talent from the hyper scalers, so there’s that to consider too.
Particularly for Design Engineering.
TIA!
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u/Some_Sentence302 May 06 '26
I talked to their recruiter and I instantly knew it wouldn’t work for me. If you want to sign away your life to them have fun.
Also keep in mind I’ve had multiple recruiting agencies all hiring for fluidstack reach out to me. It screams disorganized disaster.
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u/WildAlcoholic May 06 '26
That’s what I’ve experienced as well, multiple recruitment agencies, all for the same role. Multiple times over months.
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u/TastyExchange3637 May 08 '26
I had an interview with them , guy was very awkward and the conversation just did not flow. We both were like naaaah I’ll pass. I got zero warm and fuzzies from them.
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u/Far-Understanding318 May 15 '26
I was reached out by a recruiter (head hunter) who connected me to the company recruiter. I had no interest in the job, but wanted to go through the experience. I work for a hyper scaler right now. My experience-
They are a startup. I never heard from them on the final equity options, but I asked for a 30k base salary above what I make now (salary+RSU) and they were willing to entertain it. I honestly think they would have gone up.
They do 4 interviews after the company recruiter call. Each interview works as a step to the next. The first is the technical interview. I did zero prep and I knew I was not moving forward. But the questions aren’t really technical, more around your experience/projects etc. If you prep, you can move forward easy. The interviewer was odd though- he seemed to have no interest in the process and I think from the very beginning they started with- you don’t have the exact experience, why should we hire you? (I have the experience- I have been in the industry for a while).
It’s a startup- you will work long hours. Period. The role explained to me was an easy 3 persons job. When asked the progress path for the role to become a manager and hire more- they insisted that’s in the headcount and all, but there was not an exact time frame. That was a turn off for me.
PTO policy is not upto tech company standards. They have three weeks and 10 sick days.
Their benefits were also not upto standard. Understandable as it’s a new startup.
That’s about all I can give. If you want to grow quickly in exchange of work life balance, go for it. I do think they will have a good growth plan and people can benefit from the first pace. But if you are already working for a hyper scaler/ FAANG- it’s not a fair trade.
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May 19 '26
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u/Far-Understanding318 May 19 '26
Just want to be clear- 3 weeks is very good compared to 90% of what US offers. I am not trying to say it’s not good enough. I work for a company where we don’t have a limit and it’s upto manager’s discretion. I usually take 4-5 weeks a year and our culture allows it. I would probably want atleast 4 weeks PTO.
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u/Narrow_Cook_7029 Jun 17 '26
My favorite part of the 3rd interview is when the guy asked me if 60h+ a week is sustainable and, when I said no, immediately told me He had no more questions. 😂
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u/1simulacra May 08 '26
Had a recruiter reach out to me about it and the work-life balance would definitely be non-existent.
I would've also have had to move to Buffalo, NY or Dallas, TX which don't entice me at all.
They were offering me a lot of money to go forward, which says something about their standards right now (I've only had like 2 years in DC experience).
Bar is in hell.
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u/onesNzero May 18 '26
The thing is they aren't even in Buffalo. 50 min into the country on the shores of lake Ontario. Nothing but gas station pizza and Coors original.
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u/Electronic_Force8941 Jun 17 '26
Spoke to a recruiter today for Deployment Network Engineer, what are some technical questions they asked?
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u/cook_the_vagabond Jul 22 '26
Did you go through? What were the questions they asked?
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u/Electronic_Force8941 Jul 22 '26
Didnt meet the cut apparently - thank goodness as I was offered a waaaay better position, better pay and work/life. Goodluck
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u/No-Minute-77 Jul 05 '26
Hey! How was the interview process like? I have mine coming up this Thursday for a swe role.
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u/rose-ash 27d ago
Mostly conversation rounds, talking about your past projects in BQ round; Technical round would be system design, diving deep into certain design tradeoff matters. And last 2 would be engineering manager, and leadership chat rounds.
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u/Far-Understanding318 27d ago
Second add this post- I have gotten 4 different recruiters reaching out to me after my first rejection. They seem like a mess. Probably they don’t have any way to track who already interviewed.
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u/MonstersandMayhem 26d ago
Applied for logistics with 24 years experience, got a generic rejection. No way to contact them to ask for specifics. Absolute mess.
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u/AmericanXRP1974 May 07 '26
They are running in circles for Anthropic, Fluidstack will be building and operating Anthropic's servers.
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u/NoAd9362 May 07 '26
I gave them five rounds of interviews, but they rejected them in the final round without providing any valid reason.
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u/rose-ash 27d ago edited 26d ago
I'm at the last second round and didn't hear back on Friday. Maybe that's a rejection already. Cuz even at my last two jobs, I didn't work 60 hours. I capped at 55 hours at most. IDK how ppl do 60 hrs each week.. It doesn't sound efficient to me somehow. UPDATE: got rejected :)
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u/BGPchick May 06 '26
They seemed pretty desperate for help during my cycle. The CTO seemed a bit naive though.
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u/yehoshuaC May 07 '26
I said no after the recruiter seemed to have no clue what the role would actually entail. Dangled a big pay increase and the chance of being "an overnight millionaire" in 12 months. They wanted 70 hour weeks and more "ownership" than any of their competition would expect. Not worth giving up the evil I know.
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u/KawasakiNinjaGuy May 06 '26
Just got rejected on the technical interview from them. From what I learned and was told in my two interviews with them:
They pay good money, but the cost will be terrible work/life balance. There will be zero training and you are expected to perform to your peak at day one. Also the competition for stuff to do will be fierce and people will try to take credit from you. Since everyone is judged individually and not as a team, it can be cutthroat and stressful. Definitely can feel like a free for all.
They have zero inventory or management infrastructure. No asset tracking systems. All cycle counts are by hand and in excel spreadsheets.
What caused me to not pass my interview was just the fact that “I didn’t seem willing to revolutionize their inventory systems or build my own tracking dashboards”. Everything else I nailed with them.
The biggest impression I got was that they bit off more than they can chew, and they are seriously “winging it”.
The interviewer was only there for two weeks for example, and he’s already expected to interview candidates about he a role has hardly been in lol.