INTERVIEW I interviewed with Groupon for a UI/Designer position in Chicago. Upon submitting my resume, I was contacted by a technical recruiter within 30 minutes. I had a phone interview with HR, followed by a phone interview with a senior developer. After the phone interviews I was offered an on-site interview in Chicago. Groupon offered to pick up the cost of a Flight or Hotel + Fuel. I chose Hotel + Fuel. I was originally sent the wrong hotel reservation, that was only corrected after I brought it up. The on-site interview was disorganized. I was given a quick (< 5 min) walking tour of a Groupon, followed by an interview with two young designers. They were not prepared to interview me and stated that "they just found out about this today." I was suppose to have lunch over an interview, but never got around to it. After the first tag-team interview I was interviewed one-on-one with two senior managers. I felt the interview went fairly well until the last manager - I got the general sense that he was "shocked" that I was offered an onsite interview and after a few minutes I was shown the door, even though HR previously told me that I would be interviewing with them last. I got a call from HR when leaving Chicago, apologizing for the mix-up and promising a follow up in two days. WHAT GROUPON WAS LOOKING FOR It was clear that Groupon was looking for previous team and peer-coding experience, extensive knowledge of Git/version control systems, knowledge of JavaScript unit testing, Ruby on Rails, and modern frameworks and libraries like LESS, jQuery, etc. OUTCOME Over TWO WEEKS LATER I have still yet to be contacted by Groupon or reimbursed for travel expenses. I assume that I will not be given a job offer. I feel the entire on-site interview was a waste of everyone's time. My resume and previous phone interviews were extremely honest about my experience and the skill sets that I would bring to Groupon. Overall I don't think Groupon has caught up with it's crazy growth. I feel it would be extremely easy to fall through the cracks working there. Even if offered a job, I would decline based on my interview experience. OTHER THOUGHTS I feel Groupon's growth has also affected the working environment. Developers and designers are absolutely packed into the floors. The feeling I got from my short tour was that of a call center (and organization of the customer service reps was much like that of the developers). Overall, the environment felt like it had absolutely been drained of the workplace fun that Groupon likes to promote in recruiting.

I was contacted on LinkedIn by someone from their Palo Alto office. He then spoke to HR and arranged for me to have a phone interview and then to come check out the company and meet with my potential colleagues later on that week. I was shown around and asked very basic questions about my skills and what new technologies I was using. I was supposed to have lunch with them but it was a Friday and everyone seemed more interested in going to the bar downstairs. After about an hour I was offered water and walked to the elevator. I then received an email a day later stating that they were going to continue their search with other candidates.