Expensify.com Interview Questions

E-mailed to apply and received a follow up within a few days. After behavioral, received a coding challenge which was to implement Venmo basically, A massive project which in all honesty, according to others takes 40+ hours and I did not have the time for that. A week later, they emailed me saying the position was closed. Wasted my time and energy in all honesty, would not apply every again.

Interview process has several stages. 1. Talk with Recruiter, 2. Technical Challenge, 3. Review Challenge with Engineer, 4. Talk with Director, 5. In Person Full Day Interview. During the process they ask about your life goals numerous times. Technical challenge takes a significant amount of time to complete.

It took them 1 month to schedule the first interview successfully. Whatever about my lack of competence to give them "correct" answers, they equally failed in their ability to schedule a call. *Screening Interview* This is the first screening interview I've actually failed since leaving college 12 years ago, so cheers for taking me out of my comfort zone :D You are asked a bunch of questions like what is your proudest project and others that I didn't think were actually asked anymore as I believe you only ever get fake, unattainable answers. Plus, I'd rather be asked this by someone more appropriate if they really care about the answer. I'd then expect examples of existing employees who answered this question and how well did they do in achieving it. I would allow anyone to simply answer working in a psychologically safe environment, delivering business value, enabled, empowered, etc. They make it clear they don't read your CV, but it would've benefited them in this case to at least read my tech stack instead of listing theirs and then comparing how comfortable I'd feel. It's tech, you are either able to learn new (in their case, old) technologies or not. I was then left about 8 minutes to prioritise my own questions. Overall I'd be very wary even looking for a job here, their culture looks quite modern and interesting, but their tech stack is the complete opposite. I've worked across a range of projects from low level to app development and I felt like I was applying to quite a legacy tech stack and there were no indicators of seeking engineers to innovate and bring their tech to the next required levels. I'm hopefully wrong and it's just the recruiter in this case, but it comes across keep the lights on work inside a radical enterprise [great book] culture. They repeatedly claim to respect your time, but having now read other peoples reviews, this is incorrect. I'd describe this interview as disingenuous.

Overview: Recently, I had the opportunity to partake in Expensify's hiring process, which involved a comprehensive take-home challenge for a developer role. The details of the task revolved around creating a web application using PHP, JavaScript, and the Expensify API. While I am grateful for the chance to showcase my skills, the experience was underwhelming and left me feeling unsupported. Pros: Real-World Task: The challenge simulates a real-world scenario, allowing candidates to demonstrate how they approach and solve problems. Openness to Questions: It is commendable that they offered an open channel to ask questions during the task. Cons: Lack of Clear Expectations: The challenge seems to pride itself on being "incomplete or ambiguous." While I appreciate the need for developers to tackle ambiguous tasks, a hiring challenge is not the best place for it. As candidates, we are looking to put our best foot forward, and not having clear directions sets us up for potential pitfalls. Untimed: No clear indication of the expected time for this task was provided. This can lead to candidates spending an inordinate amount of time trying to perfect the project, leading to burnout and stress. I spent over 20 hours in this project and built sorting feature. Hosting Requirement: The task demanded that candidates find a place to host a PHP environment and make the application publicly available. While some may have the resources to do this easily, it might not be feasible for everyone. Additionally, asking candidates to make their solution public can pose security concerns. No External Libraries: This restriction, combined with the ambiguity, makes the task considerably more challenging. While it's okay to evaluate raw coding skills, it's not reflective of a real-world scenario where developers leverage existing libraries to be efficient. I later learned that my application was rejected on the grounds of not adhering to this instruction of no external library, even though it wasn’t made abundantly clear in the initial guidelines. I consider the notification as a UI library but they still rejected me. Time-Tracking Expectation: The challenge requires candidates to track their time meticulously. While this might give insights into how one approaches the problem, it adds an unnecessary layer of pressure. Limited Support: Although questions were allowed, the weight placed on this challenge and its importance in "selling" the candidate to the team made reaching out feel daunting. A more supportive structure would be beneficial. Recommendations: Provide Clearer Guidelines: Giving candidates a clear understanding of expectations can alleviate unnecessary stress. Set a Time Limit: Provide an estimated time limit for the challenge to ensure candidates can manage their time effectively. Rethink Hosting Requirements: Consider alternatives, such as allowing candidates to demonstrate their application via screen-sharing tools during a follow-up interview. Allow Essential Libraries: Restricting certain frameworks is okay, but give flexibility for essential libraries. It reflects a more real-world development scenario. Conclusion: While I appreciate the intention behind the take-home challenge, the experience felt more burdensome than constructive. Candidates should feel supported and guided through the hiring process. A challenge, while being a tool for evaluation, should also serve as an introduction to the company's culture and values. In this instance, I felt more tested than welcomed.

The take-home assignment for the application process can be quite extensive, requiring at least a week to complete thoroughly. It's also worth noting that if your reviewer happens to be 'M' based in Dubai, give it up right now cause she will find millions of reasons to reject you.

It's been a 3-month process pre technical test. I now assume maybe this silence is them testing you to be part of their autonomous workflow culture in a flat organization

I had read the reviews here on Glassdoor before my first interview so I was aware that they have no concern for people's time and are completely subjective on their evaluations and, alas, that was exactly the case for me. After going through the process I can say with confidence: don't waste your time with them. The process is incredibly subjective and basically leans on the question "what are your life goals and how coding at Expensify can get you there?" They will keep asking the exact same question multiple times and won't be satisfied unless you answer that on your death bed (seriously!) you would be proud to have worked at Expensify. I applied via email as per their website instructions (no resumes etc.) and after a half hour screening interview with the recruiter I was sent their technical challenge description, which is not difficult per se but does require a lot of time to finish properly - easily a whole week of full time work, good luck getting that done if you have a family and a full time job already. Anyhow, I do appreciate the "real world" nature of the challenge but it just takes a lot of time to do it right, so who knows, this might even be by design so that you only hire folks with free time available and thus work extra hours for the company. As others have mentioned in previous reviews here, the process is kind of long but not exactly difficult, just wildly subjective and, frankly, out of touch. I was given high praise for my solution to the technical challenge and my performance on all rounds of the "on-site" interview, but at the end of the day none of that mattered because one of the 3 directors I spoke to did not like me. I am positive that a mother of two, for example, would be immediately disqualified for saying they want a stable, high-paying job to provide for their family. No, they want you to come up with some sort of wicked narrative that when you're on your death bed, the only way to have lived a fulfilled life would be working long hours at Expensify. I kid you not, one of the interviewers basically said this with "softer" language. Avoid at all costs.

email responses to questions posted on website short phone screen (behavioral) long take home challenge (coding) long technical background interview (non-coding) and code review did not make it to the virtual super day

It's a LONG 6 step process: 1. Questions on the website 2. Phone screen 3. Take home challenge 4. Chat with engineer 5. Chat with director 6. All day onsite with two challenges All in all, I invested ~40 hours in the interview process and took ~1 month. For the most part, everyone seemed really cool and friendly. The take home challenge is not difficult persay, but requires some time. I made it to the first challenge of the all day onsite and did poorly, so they cut it off there. This, to me, is where most of my negative feelings stem from. They told me they "respected my time", so wouldn't proceed if the first challenge didn't go well. However, after 30+ hours invested this felt beyond disingenuous when I was told they were not moving forward, particularly with all of the copy on their website about looking for people who could learn and grow. This seems like a great company to work for with lots of great culture and benefits. That said, the interview process is an absolute slog, and left me burnt out and frustrated by their apparent disregard for the time and effort I invested. Recommend anyone considering applying proceed with caution and the understanding that you are highly likely to invest a lot of time with absolutely no compensation or return.

Expensify does not care about your time. While obviously some candidates are hired, you should know that by their own admission your chances are exceedingly small. When first reading other reviews I was left with the mistaken impression they were just tough, so if I was ambitious and worked hard I could still get in. That's not true. They are comparatively easy on objective requirements, but any of your numerous interviewers could say "I didn't jive with the guy" and your application is over, which leaves a lot out of your control. Additionally, it's a textbook example of a process that could easily foster discrimination, despite their progressive image (I doubt that played a factor for me). One interviewer was 15 minutes late, but the rest were polite in interviews. They also gave feedback after the take-home challenge and when they rejected me. However, I was asked the same question (life goals) four separate times in three separate interviews and once in writing. I evidently passed the first three times, but was rejected for giving the same exact answer for the FOURTH time to a new interviewer. This was after completing their massive take-home challenge that took well over a week of full-time work. I personally think my answer was good, but it's a subjective question and others of course can differ. What I found infuriating, however, was how they only bothered to decide they didn't like my answer once continuing with me would have cost them significant amounts of their own time (I was rejected after three interviews, immediately before their virtual "onsite", which would have been the first time they would have had to spend a lot of time on my application). The take-home challenge appears purposefully tedious to weed people out and is pretty dull and needlessly repetitive if you have experience in similar roles (nothing hard, though). I asked clarifying questions to see what exactly they wanted, and they seemed to want you to not only fulfil what they asked, but to run with the idea and build further upon it. As but one example, an interviewer said most of the candidates they pass build a searching and sorting function into the project, despite it not being mentioned anywhere in the spec (this is for the build a production ready web client for their API challenge). The additional functionality means it will somehow take even longer than it originally looks. It seems like an interesting company, but do you really value your time so poorly that you are willing to be treated this way? Try the LeetCode circuit instead. That's unpleasant as well, but at least you'll have a transferable skill at the end of it. I have nothing to show after giving them over two weeks of my life (ironic, considering their focus on life goals). Expensify: If you read this, you look like a nice bunch, but this process needs work! You're not the first to find issue in my character (just ask my ex haha), but I feel taken advantage of when you waited as late as you did to come to that conclusion, especially when you had everything you needed to do it sooner. Also, if you have too many applicants to respectfully handle you should consider increasing the difficultly (not scope) of the tech screen. I hope you can learn from this. Good luck!