I applied through a recruiter. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Badi (Barcelona) in Aug 2021
Interview
When I started the process, everything was very smooth and fast. The technical challenge is of a correct difficulty and the interviews were well organized and interesting.
I could met part of the team and they explained me everything relevant about the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
About my experience, my motivations and some other technical questions.
I applied online. The process took 8 weeks. I interviewed at Badi (Barcelona) in Aug 2020
Interview
1) Interview with Badi's recruiter. A very nice conversation where they explained their product and get to know my experience.
2) They sent me a home test with a very vague requirement. When I sent them an e-mail to clear some questions up I received other vague replies like "well, that depends on what you assume ;)" or "you can consider what you want".
3) After that, they scheduled a meeting with one of their engineers. It was to solve a simple code challenge. I felt that it was one of the first times this engineer was leading an interview because the engineer seemed a little bit uncomfortable, hesitating to collaborate and unorganized in regards to the time of the interview. Not sure if that engineer was a senior one, to be honest.
After this, the engineer sent me an alternative solution via e-mail and asked me what my thoughts were. I've said that it looked good but would improve X. I've never got any reply about that suggestion.
Anyways I've received positive feedback.
4) Chat with management. They asked me what I would like to talk about and I said that we could chat about the work I did in my previous company. I explained the challenges, etc and they started to do their questions. At this point, they started to abruptly interrupt me several times to do their questions while I was still giving an explanation. They seemed a little bit anxious. Despite this issue, the questions made sense, and they were keen to understand the bigger picture.
5) Chat with another engineer
Another simple code challenge, but at an "architectural" level. They asked me how I would build a backend service to deliver TV shows and their schedules. I felt that the engineer was having a bad time to technically conduct the interview. It seemed that whenever I gave a solution that was not expected they were like: "Oh, ok, now I get where you are going". This engineer also seemed that had never led interviews before.
At the end, they sent me an e-mail giving a super generic response like "We decided to move forward with another candidate, and despite your technical skills we wouldn't be a fit for each other".
I asked them for better feedback but they continued to be vague: "You have good technical skills but lack of collaboration and curiosity". Seriously?
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a function will be called many times, how would you optimize that?