I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Swell Energy
Interview
First round is with the company recruiter. There was some technical questions with live coding and other background questions. Second round is 30 minute meeting with a VP of Engineering. After that, I spent like 3 hours doing their take-home assessment. It's always subjective, which I don't love, but better than live whiteboarding... Anyways, they rescheduled the follow-up interview to review the code, approximately an hour before, which I had changed my vacation plans and work schedule for which was stressful but it was fine, one of the panel members was sick. The worst part was the condescending demeanor of the interviewer in the 3rd round. Someone you'd probably work with on a regular basis. Arrogance and smugness in dev team members is always a huge red flag in my book. I guess the plan for this 3rd round was to ask very vague, ostensibly behavioral questions to make the process even more subjective. It was strange to do this with technical team members instead of focusing on the job we discussed some abstract ideas about coding a decks of cards. I did not appreciate how the interviewer did not turn on his camera when his colleague and I did. This person was in a lead position with the company and seems inexperienced in interviewing and not friendly in general which made it harder for me to relax in the interview. So, my recommendation to management is to remove him from the interview process, and maybe even re-interview candidates with someone else otherwise you will get more team members like that.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Re-arrange and perform some operations on a list with Python - What was the most serious production issue you've had