Nuance Software Engineer In Linguistics Interview Questions & Reviews

Interviewed May 2011 in Seattle, WA (took 3 weeks)

I was definitely an entry-level employee but came with a recommendation. I had a phone interview for a standard software engineering position which was (in my estimation) inconclusive, and they sent me some programming questions over email and gave me a few days to complete them. I don't know if this was standard practice or if I got a little special treatment because of my combination of a recommendation and lack of formal experience. The questions were pretty standard CS fare: one on linked lists, one concerning binary trees, and I was rusty but I suspect someone who wasn't could have banged them out in a night.

After a little while my resume got diverted to the linguistics team, and I ended up having an interview which I think was kind of a hodge-podge: it was with a couple members each of two different teams. It was not all that clear to me which position I was interviewing for—the software engineering one or the linguistics one—but coming from working in retail I didn't much care. The questions were almost entirely centered on coding, though I went out to lunch for one of them and got some looser, more open-ended questions about teamwork and general problem solving then. My last interview was on speakerphone with someone who telecommuted most days.

Everyone was friendly and patient with me despite my total lack of knowledge of what to expect, and I felt like it was a very encouraging experience all around.

I had to come back a few days later for another interview; this one was just with the manager of the engineering team, it was over lunch, and it felt very casual and not much like I was being quizzed. He did a good job of putting me at ease and it was as pleasant as the other interviews had been.