Interview with a manager left me unimpressed. The manager focused on what I knew about programming in theory, not what I can do in practice. When it was my turn to ask questions, the manager got defensive and did not answer me with tact.
From the interview, I sensed that my experience working there would be hit or miss depending on my team. Each manager uses a different methodology and level of communication with its members. I did not see unity between the company's visions and actions.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Ticom Geomatics (New York, NY)
Interview
Before even talking to anyone, they send you a Codility test. If you have never done a Codility test, make sure to prepare by going over as many practice problems as you can so that you get a feel for how the questions are structured. Didn't do so well, so never made it to the next round. Not entirely a fan of these types of automated coding challenges, as I feel there is so much more to software development than being able to find the length of the longest quasi subsequence in an array of integers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Find the length of the longest quasi subsequence in an array of integers?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Ticom Geomatics (Austin, TX) in Oct 2015
Interview
I submitted my resume through a friend and it took a couple of weeks before I heard anything from the company. I was contacted by the company's recruiter who set up a phone screen with one of the engineers. The engineer asked me a number of programming questions and then at the end of the interview gave me a timed programming "test". Even though it was never mentioned before or during the interview, the coding test used Node.js, Angular.js, and Ember.js. I was never told this and since I didn't know these technologies, I couldn't do the test in the hour given. The job requisition mentioned a long list of technologies but Node and Angular were not even mentioned. The only clue I had was when the interviewer asked me if I knew Node.js. I said 'no' but oddly he still didn't mention that this was the focus of their search. He never asked me about Angular or Ember even though these were part of the coding test.
The interviewer was polite and friendly, but the interview became very awkward for me upon seeing the test because I knew immediately that I wouldn't be able to complete the code in an hour. I was frustrated that neither the interviewer nor the recruiter told me what technologies I would need to do the test. If I had known ahead of time, I could have looked at the technologies or I could have chosen to decline the interview. As it was, the entire process was a waste of time that could have been avoided if they would have just said that they were looking for a MEAN stack developer.
