An HR/Recruiting representative reached out to me to have me sign up for a time slot for an initial phone screen. I then advanced onto the coding interview portion of the hiring process. In both cases my interviewers were kind courteous, and the automated scheduling system that square uses was very good at reminding me that I had an upcoming interview. One of the main things I appreciated about the Square interview was that, during the coding portion, there was another human being on the other end of the shared code pad. I have taken several coding interviews through automated systems that I don't like as much because I can't ask questions or talk through strategy.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I don't remember the exact question at this point but it was a 2D array manipulation question that dealt with finding an optimal path. There were also questions about previous work experience, and general coding knowledge questions.
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Block (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2018
Interview
I applied via Linkedin. I had my first and only interview at the Square office since I am local to the Bay Area. Everyone was nice during my interview. I arrived at Square for my one hour interview. I signed an NDA so I can't tell you the question. I can tell you that they do not do brainteaser interviews that other tech companies do. Instead, they ask you a reasonable question that you could actually end of implementing in the real world. They tell you that you can use any resources that you would like to use such as Google and debugging.
During my 1 hour interview, I only received positive signals from my interviewer. My code passed all test. He kept saying that what I was doing is right. So I was shocked when I received a rejection note the next day.
I asked my recruiter for feedback and he was nice enough to respond with feedback.
Here is the feedback and what I learned from that feedback:
- Feedback: You relied too heavily on the eclipse autocorrect without taking the time to understand the bug.
-->I would say that I agree that I relied on the eclipe autocorrect. I would suggest taking the time to understand the bug instead of doing what I did and just letting it autocorrect.
-Feedback: You copied paste code without understanding how to use it first.
-->I agree with this feedback too.I would suggest understanding the code in the browser and just take your time to type it out instead of doing what I would do during my regular job which is grab the code and then modify it in the IDE to suit the purpose I need it for.
-Feedback: You struggled with debugging.
--> I do *not* agree with this feedback and find it slightly embarrassing that this is on my file, but what is meant for me is meant for me. During the interview, I had a bug in my code. So the interviewer asked if I would like to debug it. I said sure. I was about to debug it but then I realized what my bug was and instead of debugging, I just corrected it. It ran perfectly. I did not know that he was trying to test my debugging skills and wanted me to continue to debug.
Ok. So there is a common theme here. Square (or at least this interviewer) would prefer that you take your time and instead of hurrying up to do things. Most companies want speed, Square seems to want you to just take the time to get it right the first time. If you look up something on the internet, even though copy-pasting is faster, I would say take the time to type it out. Know that they want to test your debugging skills. During my future interviews at other companies, I am going to ask the interviewer at the end of the interview if they have any concerns about my abilities so that I can address them.
Thank you for sharing your pair programming experience with us. We’re glad to hear that the feedback your recruiter provided was constructive and we appreciate you taking the time to follow up after your interview. We hope you will consider applying again in the future!
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