I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Curiosity Media (Rosslyn, VA) in Dec 2018
Interview
The interview was four rounds of interviews, two for cultural fit and two for technical fit.
The cultural interviews were relatively easy, some of them included some questions that asked brief technical questions, but were mostly unrelated to role - such as a how you would solve a generic problem like structuring a database table to support a feature.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I was asked to first diagnose a bug in the codebase and then find a solution for it. Then I was next asked how I would break down and estimate a feature and let product know if it was feasible to build. Finally, I was asked how I would choose architecture and design patterns based on the current implementations and future features in the pipeline.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Curiosity Media in Jul 2021
Interview
Zoom screening to gather basic info about my background and tell me a little about the company. The interviewer was clearly reading a list of questions and it wasn't very conversational. This step kind of felt unnecessary since they could have gained this information just by looking at my resume. The interviewer wasn't technical, so there wasn't much depth to it.
Next they set me up for a technical interview with one of the engineers. He had me share my screen and do some basic javascript problem solving. The problems were pretty easy revolving around a basic implementation of search autocomplete. He seemed impressed with my speed and explanation of these solutions.
At the end he asked some more broad architectural questions. Asked me what I would do to improve their site and theoretical performance issues. I listed off a few things, and he seemed pretty satisfied with my answers.
I was a bit surprised when they decided not to move forward. I'm still not sure what they were looking for, but apparently my answers didn't convey enough expertise in the particular areas they were wanting out of a fullstack engineer. I guess there was something specific he was wanting to hear but never said what that was, so I'm not sure if I really wasn't qualified or I just didn't think to mention it.
I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Curiosity Media (Washington, DC) in Sept 2018
Interview
I was initially given a test (multiple choice) to assess my language abilities in Spanish and English. After passing that one, I was given another test (non-multiple choice). After that, I had two phone interviews. Note: I've marked the interview as difficult. It's not that the over-the-phone part was hard (it wasn't). However, their testing is comprehensive and hard... they're really weeding out anyone who isn't at the expert-level.
I was made an offer, but the compensation was lower than my other freelance work I do. It just didn't make financial sense to take the job. That said, I was impressed with the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
They asked how I would translate various words from English to Spanish and vice-versa