Standard in-person interview. Asked to write some code, sketch some things on a whiteboard, then talk about my experience. Seemed to go pretty well. The novel part came afterwards.
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I interviewed on a Monday, and was told to expect a decision the next day. But I did not hear back Tuesday. Or Wednesday. However, Wednesday evening, I noticed that they had re-posted the job. Seemed like a pretty insensitive way to let me know.
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Friday comes around, and still having heard nothing, I finally email the recruiter to ask if they want to tell me anything at all, since I clearly did not get the job. I finally got a response that told me that they still had to discuss my interview, as someone involved had been out of town. This was clearly false, since they'd had enough of a discussion to decide re-post the job.
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The following week, I was told that while I wasn't explicitly being turned down, they were starting the recruiting process completely from scratch with other candidates, so I might not get a final answer for several weeks. Eventually, I did get a real rejection, which I very much expected at that point.
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I cannot comprehend the confusion of a process that would treat candidates in this manner. Even if I had eventually been hired (which I don't think was a real possibility) I would have forever been aware that I was their last choice after they tried hard to find someone better. This is not how you recruit loyal employees.
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Flowplay (Seattle, WA) in Apr 2015
Interview
They bring candidates in to take a coding test that involves implementing a Breakout game using FlashDevelop and AS3. They emphasize that speed is priority and give you about 1 hour to implement functionality for this game, which is hardly enough time to get it working properly and is a questionable process at best to determine coding merit. Once your time is up, they come by and move you into the conference room to review your submission. Once they finish looking over your code, they look over your resume and ask questions about your background and experience.
What really surprised me was how I have 6 years of industry experience and yet they asked me what my GPA was during my academic years. This was a giant red flag.
While the person who interviewed me was quite polite, the whole interview process was disorganized and I did not get the impression that they hire exceptional engineers.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Even though you have over 6 years of industry experience, could you tell me what your GPA was during your college years?