I was referred to FSW and they setup an in-person interview immediately. I took the day off from my current FTE to do so.
In the first round, I was interviewed by two developers and a non-developer.
The non-developer was rude. He kept making inappropriate comments. The other two developers were constantly telling him to knock it off.
Such as: "You have a great background, but, you're resume is just way too long." I respond. He says "I'm just kidding... or am I? [snicker]". Unprofessional.
The first technical question they asked was to write code on the whiteboard to output a factorial calculation. However, their explanation of the output format was very poor. I asked for clarification several times while attempting to answer the question, and each reply was even more confusing. It finally became clear when I wrote out an example of the output and they finally realized how confusing they were actually being. After that was resolved, I was able to write 90% of the correct code until the non-developer interrupted me and said I was doing it wrong. This caused me to second guess myself and re-consider everything from scratch. On top of that, the other two developers chastised him once again for doing this. However, they did not reassure me that I was on the right path, either. And despite all of this, I am a self-taught programmer (which they knew, because I made sure to point it out) who has never once ever had to calculate a factorial in 17+ years; and yet my answer was nearly spot on. I simply didn't have time (or motivation) to finish it thanks to the confusing and inappropriate behavior.
It was at this point I gave up. I wanted to walk out. However, I stayed throughout the entire interview process because I didn't want any negativity to brush back on my referral.
So, they asked me a few more questions, which I answered correctly. However, all of them were poorly explained. The last question was so bad, I simply pawned it off and didn't answer. I have a feeling I may have been rolling my eyes at this point.
The first part of the interview stopped because upper management wanted to use our meeting room. Again, great organization/communication! Honestly, I was just happy to be away from the non-developer. He should have never been in the interview to begin with. He wasn't even a programmer!
The second part of the interview was a programming test on a laptop loaded with Visual Studio.
The person overseeing the test's ability to communicate was just as bad. And, when I would ask questions, he would immediately get frustrated and act like he didn't want to help. And I did ask a lot of questions, intentionally, to demonstrate my ability to engage and work with others. I also didn't have much choice, since the scope of work consisted of electricity, volts, watts and lumens; all surrounding the usage of electrical current and light bulbs, of which I barely have a rudimentary knowledge of. The person overseeing the test was getting upset that I didn't have a complete understanding of this. Really? That is a very poor assumption to place on your candidates. Regardless, I still completed the exam in less than an hour and got everything correct.
Finally, the last phase of the interview was with primary management. Initially, he told me I did very well. Then, half-way through the interview, he told me I did a very poor job (??). Which was followed by "we would like to offer your 'this' amount for salary, but since you did poorly, we have to offer you 'this much less'". And it was barely much less than what I had asked for. Sitting there, I could tell he was trying to utilize the poor interactions between myself and the interviewers as an excuse to lower my salary; despite the fact that I actually did well.
And, if I had done so poorly then I would not have been offered the job!
At this point I was handed off to HR. They gave me an offer letter shortly after I left the building.
Of course I turned it down.
In recent updates: it is public knowledge that FSW has laid off nearly their entire developer staff.
So, to you I say: good luck! Maybe you can deal with factorial calculations and lumens in your interviews, too!
