I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Forward (San Francisco, CA) in Jan 2019
Interview
I applied to Forward through their website. A recruiter reached out and set up an introductory phone call where he went over my background and told me more about Forward, the engineering team, and the interview process.
The next step was a 1:1 chat with a Forward engineer in their hq and a product demo by the recruiter in the downtown clinic. The demo was great as I got a walkthrough of the Forward clinic in downtown SF and got to see first hand what the company is building. The chat with the engineer was non-technical - I talked about my current role and what I was looking for, and the engineer asked me some follow up questions. As with every interview, I had plenty of time to ask questions at the end.
The next interview was a technically focused onsite where I chatted with 2 engineers as well as the head of recruiting. The 2 technical interviews were both system design based with a little bit of algorithms thrown in - very interesting, open ended questions and ones that you can't really study for.
The final interview was another onsite with the head of engineering (non-technical), an engineer (technical), and the CEO (non-technical). Again, the non-technical questions focused on my background and what I was looking for in a new role, and the technical question was another system design question. The interview with the CEO (Adrian) focused around the company's values and was a completely open ended, back and forth conversation.
I (surprisingly) did not write any code during my interview process. The interviews focused around system design and eq-focused questions. I felt like I had ample opportunity to learn about Forward at each stage, and the interview with the CEO was especially eye opening on what the company is trying to build and with whom. Forward is looking for a group of not only technically competent, but also passionate and driven engineers, and their interview process espoused that.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Various system design questions and non-technical questions.
Great! Focused system design + average leetcode questions. Behavioral interview was very nice and straightforward. Systems design interview include building a scribe tool for doctors to use. Was more a paired session with the interviewer.
It was pretty normal as far as interviews in tech go for entry level engineers. It felt like they were spending more time selling me on their product than on questioning me. Some standard Leetcode style question.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Something about the minimum travel distance on a keyboard grid.
Medium difficulty. Interviewed before the company abruptly shut down. Like the team, did not get many specifics about the business, particularly regarding the care pods. It was a few phone screens and then onsite.