Bazaarvoice Interview Questions

Application

The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice (Austin, TX) in March 2019.

Interview

TLDR: The coding problems consist of classical Cracking The Coding Interview stuff and no single problem was overly difficult. But I would still recommend to properly prepare since it’s a different beast to solve these problems on a whiteboard - even if they are a rather easy if you are sitting at home on your couch with your favorite IDE. Furthermore, be prepared to cover _a lot_ of topics: The interviewers (most of them are very experienced) asked me questions that covered everything from low-level data structure and implementation stuff to design, scalability, QA, DevOps, development methodologies and leadership. Last but not least: The recruiter I worked with (Michael) did an outstanding job - he was very engaged and kept me informed about every step in the process.

Step 0: A recruiter got in touch with me on LinkedIn / initial call with the recruiter

The interview process consisted of 7 steps:

Step 1: Phone Interview with the Hiring Manager

A roughly 45 minutes long phone interview with the hiring manager. This was actually a little bit tricky since I interviewed for 2 different roles at the same time. That made the conversation until the end of the interview process a little bit less straight forward compared to the case where you know exactly which role you are applying for.

Step 2: Technical phone screen

A software engineer administered a coding challenge via CodePair. It started with a fairly easy tree construction / processing exercise. The interviewer then incrementally added more requirements and asked some behavioral question in the end.

Step 3 (on-site): 1 hour whiteboard coding session

Two software engineers conducted a 1-hour whiteboard coding session that covered basic data structure stuff. While it was not too difficult, you should be confident writing compilable code on a whiteboard.

Step 4 (on-site): 1 hour lunch with the hiring manager

A (obviously) less technical session without any whiteboarding. Gave both me and the hiring manager a chance to talk in more detail about both roles. The hiring manager also asked a lot of process related questions: Which development methodology (e.g. Scrum vs Kanban) do I prefer and why? What is my take on TDD? Stuff like this.

Step 5 (on-site): 1 hour whiteboard system design session

One software engineer and a DevOps manager conducted a 1-hour whiteboard system design session. The task was to design a scalable web application. Should not be too difficult if you have done that before.

Step 6 (on-site): 1 hour DevOps / QA Q&A session

A 1 hour conversation with two DevOps / QA engineers. Boy, I don’t even recall how many topics we touched. Felt like we talked about every single topic you can discuss about in software engineering world.

Step 7 (on-site): 1 hour whiteboard coding session

Ironically, the initial task (some in-place string manipulation stuff) was the easiest problem I was given so far. But I made the mistake to define my test cases only as set of parameters (I did not write down the expected values). The result was that I had to keep track of two different things while manually debugging my code: What should the algorithm do vs. what does the algorithm do. This threw me off big time and I was not able to fully recover from my brain freeze (since at this time I did not really see the root cause). So I just struggled through it until the end.

Interview

There was a written exam and an online interview followed by a phone interview and then an onsite visit to present a plan to a round table of team members and managers who were able to ask questions

Interview

1. Phone - convo with recruiter.
2. Phone - technical interview (remote coding was involved).
3. On-site - four 1-on-1, 45-minute technical interviews with staff/senior engineers and a 2-on-1 lunch interview with management.
4. Phone - negotiations with recruiter.

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice (Austin, TX) in July 2018.

Interview

There was an initial phone screen followed by a phone screen with a manager and then an in-person mock Discovery call and followed by immediate critique and then two to three in-person interviews. You will have one recruiter that will work with you through the process. I was on-site for about three hours.

For sales, I thought this was a good hiring process. The situational setup required a fair amount of work beforehand but was helpful for me to get an understanding of the company.

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice (Austin, TX) in June 2018.

Interview

Phone Screen -> First round interview -> Mock cold email -> Second Round Interview -> Third Round In-person Interview w/ Mock Sales Discovery call -> Offer. Difficult but its good to know they weed out weak candidates. I had to spend 5 hours preparing for the final round interview as the mock discovery call required tons of research. Coordinated a call with 3 of the teams top salespeople. Intimidating but rewarding. Overall the entire process was great. The recruiter was super helpful and kind. Matt Kelso is the man.

Application

I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice (New York, NY) in May 2018.

Interview

Pretty traditional consisting of a phone screen, phone call with hiring manager, 3+ hours of in-person interviews, followed by a final project. Everyone was very polite, smart, and asked the right questions during my interview. I loved the personal touch of the thank you note at the beginning of my on-site interviews. Bazaarvoice was at the top of my list for career considerations, but timing was bad (they had a company kickoff after my interview) and as a result there was no momentum until two-weeks after my on-site interviews. I ended up taking another offer since I had interviewed with several other companies during that time.

Application

I applied through a recruiter. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice (Austin, TX).

Interview

Pretty standard. Contacted by a recruiter (Travis-- the best!), spoke with hiring manager, interviewed on-site with ~5 people, came back for a test/presentation, got an offer that afternoon!

Application

The process took a week. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice.

Interview

The recruiting process was a mess. After the recruiter rescheduled a phone screening via email (minutes after it was suppose to be begin), she forgot to follow up and finally rescheduled for a week later.

Apparently, if you’re referred to a position by a current employee, they set up a call up no matter what. The call seemed to be going well until I asked about salary and then the recruiter started to talk about me being referred by my ex colleague and how they wanted to reach out to me because of him, but they were looking for a Senior level candidate.

Never did the job description say anything about senior-level status prerequisites. When I mentioned this, the recruiter acted surprised and said she “literally didn’t know about this until yesterday.”

I understand the need for qualified candidates in a senior-level role, but this just felt like a runaround especially since I have the experience for the associate role I applied for the begin with.

I was initially excited about this company, but it seems like the employee reviews are quite accurate.

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice (Austin, TX).

Interview

Thorough, rigorous, thought-provoking process that encouraged both introspection and demanded a clear expression of a 30/60/90 plan to show competency and understanding. I appreciated the rigor - said a lot about the standards they share and the quality they demand.

Application

I applied online. The process took 4 days. I interviewed at Bazaarvoice.

Interview

The interview process was quick, transparent, and I had constant communication from my recruiter. I was very impressed with the level of candidate experience that was demonstrated. My on-site visit lasted a few hours, the building was beautiful, and I felt the time I had set aside to visit was appreciated/valued.