Initial screening and then F2F. F2F was very long for a contracting position and not very well done.
The F2F was slotted like below:
- Whiteboard abstract exercise with team lead.
- Pair programming exercise with other developer.
- Interview with scrum master.
The worst thing I found was the whiteboard exercise since it was so vague. I could not tell if this was a design exercise or technical exercise. I think a typical whiteboard algorithmic exercise or design problem would be much better since at least you know what you are trying to solve. It felt like we were jumping between design and implementation and answering vague questions with some pseudo code here and there - which made the whole thing a potato salad.
Needless to say that didn't go well.
Pair programming exercise was very easy. A simple exercise in Python and then writing tests (TDD) and enhancing the solution as you go.
Scrum master meeting was more informal and I guess this is where you can get a feel and ask more cultural questions.
I think the whole process is suboptimal. You meet 1 person at a time so you end up wasting 3-4 hours in something that could be done in 1.5-2 hours.
Overall people seemed nice and the workplace seems good. But the interviewing process needs some overhaul changes - it's a waste of time.
