I applied through university. I interviewed at Smart Data Solutions (Minneapolis, MN) in Aug 2020
Interview
The first interview was Java language proficiency check, then after the interview contacted by HR with a second-round interview with the development team and HR. The interview was mostly behavioural and HR and the team describing the company and position more.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
What qualities make you different than other candidates?
I entered a zoom meeting with an HR worker. And then she completely left the zoom call once she gave me remote control of her screen. No interaction with a person at all.
Worst interview experience I've ever had. They throw you in a zoom call and give you remote control of a IDE and have you do 2 problems for an hour each. If you have a question or need clarification on how to do something, they won't respond. They're not even watching you during the interview. I finished the second question with over 20 minutes and had to just sit there in silence while I waited for the time to be up despite multiple attempts to tell them I was done.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Debug some code and write a email explaining the errors.
Hello,
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. The technical test you are referring to is the first step in the hiring process for the Software Developer position, which is given before the actual interview. We are sorry your experience with our technical test was not positive, and we will be taking your feedback into consideration to make this process better. Thanks again for sharing your concerns.
I applied for this position online and was emailed the same day to setup an interview scheduled for two weeks later. Some scheduling conflict arose on Smart Data Solution's end, so I was interviewed with them another week later. My interview was a technical assessment in Java (using Eclipse) with two parts (second part also consisted of two parts). Each part was limited to one hour (two hours total). The interviewer was only present to set up the meeting and show the problems in Eclipse via Zoom. I was asked to solve each part of their pre-existing Java solution remotely (latency was not a major issue because I have decent internet). I was allowed all resources at my disposal (including online). The first problem had me finish a solution to convert a .dat file to .csv file. The second part had me type my response to the problems in a .txt file in the text editor of Eclipse. I was sent an email letting me know I wasn't being considered for the position the following week. I was frustrated since the interviewer did not help to explain any of the existing code in the first part and because the interviewer left once the assessments began so I couldn't ask any questions part-way through.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Part 1: Convert customer data file (.dat) to csv file in Java. The .dat file contained customer data in fixed-width format with each line having customer ID, name (first, last, and middle initial), address, company, state, and zip code.
Part 2 (two parts): The first part was simple; debug the solution (their working solution of Part 1) to identify why two the customers did not show up in the csv file. The second part was even simpler; write a letter to the client describing the problems.
