I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Appara (Vancouver, BC)
Interview
First round is a quick phone interview; don't be fooled, it's not just a behavioral. It starts off with the interviewer telling you about the company, and what they're looking for. First, the interviewer speeds through this and jumps into quick behavioral questions, mostly talking about yourself and your software development journey. After this, you enter a speedy technical challenge about OOP principles. Most of it is university level OOP terms you learn in your first year, I would recommend touching up on these as its not really something you'd remember working in the field, more of a school knowledge. After the technical questions, you get a chance to ask a couple questions of your own
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Tell me about yourself and walk me through your programming journey (start from when you wrote your first code)
What is inheritance? What is an abstract class? What happens if you add static to an int myVariable? What is a thread? What is a primary key in a database?
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Appara in Sep 2024
Interview
Overall, very positive experience - the company clearly knows what they want and do not require you to jump through unclear hoops before making a decision.
Stage 1 - short (15-20 minutes) phone screening. Involves short introduction and several rapid-fire theoretical technical questions on OOP and RDBMS concepts and terminology - fairly basic stuff. If you have solid college-level understanding of theory you should not have trouble answering.
Stage 2 - 2 hour coding exercise. Best part of the process - instead of performing a random leetcode problem, you are doing what is essentially a pair-programming session with several different engineers. You get to demonstrate how you think and collaborate with others in a manner that feels authentic to how you normally work. The difficulty is pretty average - you are expected to understand C# class design basics and at least basic Data Structures and Algorithms (I implemented BFS at one point, for example).
I got an offer within a week after the second interview.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How long have you been programming and what made you choose this profession?
I applied online. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Appara in Jul 2024
Interview
I had a 15-minute phone interview where I was asked to describe my experience and interests. Additionally, I was asked 5 technical questions about Java programming. The interview was conducted through a phone call.