I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Headspace in Oct 2022
Interview
I met with another engineer on the team, and he shared a link for a shared IDE where I wrote my code. The interview focused on front end dev in React and was about an hour.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Stateful user interface in React, built components, passed state among them based on UI events.
Pretty standard process overall. An initial screen using a third party, then a three round panel. Standard DSA questions, probably around the medium to hard range compared to leet code.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Asked me some questions about my resume and experience
I applied through other source. I interviewed at Headspace
Interview
SLEAZY RECRUITER RESCINDED OFFER
I went through final rounds and got a written offer with a deadline. Before that, the recruiter called me out of the blue past work hours. When I returned his call the next morning, he pushed aggressively for a comp number. He made weird personal comments about my unemployment and finances, which felt totally inappropriate.
I kept it professional, declined to give a number, and moved the conversation to email. He sent the offer, I gave a reasonable counter, and then…silence. I followed up, got vague replies, and then the offer was quietly pulled with no explanation (still within the active window).
It felt less like negotiation and more like retaliation.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Recruiter asked: "Do you not know how to read a job description? Why don't you say a number first? The ranges are right on the job description."
I was contacted by a recruiter, who forwarded my résumé to the hiring manager. I went through a culture fit and role-specific interview with the manager. Went through a live Coding challenge that included unit tests, but I heard of other candidates getting LC-based easy challenges and expected to solve multiple ones.
Then a System Design interview with a lead engineer.
And in my case, I was also interviewed by upper management.
I heard that sometimes there's also a take-home project step.
Every interaction was extremely positive. All great people.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Behavior-based expecting a STAR response: Describe a time where you disagreed with another engineer, and how you solved it.
Solve random easy Leetcode-type challenges, but expecting candidates to solve more than one.
Standard Sys Design interview