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      Graduate Software Developer Interview

      Apr 23, 2019
      Anonymous Interview Candidate
      Edinburgh, Scotland
      No offer
      Negative experience
      Difficult interview

      Application

      I applied online. The process took 7 weeks. I interviewed at FreeAgent (Edinburgh, Scotland) in Mar 2019

      Interview

      2 and a half weeks after I applied I received a Ruby coding test, with apologies for the late reply. The task was to calculate foreign exchange rates for a specific date. I got a test file, a json file, and an empty module where I had to write the method. The instructions claimed that you shouldn't spend more than a couple of hours on it, but it involved reading up on Ruby classes/modules, raising exceptions, conventions, testing, and making difficult design decisions to make sure changing the source of the data wouldn't cost much. Despite being presented as an easy exercise to "serve as something to discuss with the hiring team", and the graduate role itself not requiring any actual experience in Ruby, the reviewers were very harsh. My code passed all their tests, and I actually went beyond that to create a class that would use the logic. I was told that my clean code, structure, and good naming were appreciated, but got rejected because my code "would need some work" should the data source change. I also didn't add tests for the extra code I wrote, as I had already spent a lot of time on the exercise, and I felt that was beyond the point. I enjoyed doing the exercise, but expecting someone who applies for a graduate role to write perfect code based on conventions they might not fully be aware of is ridiculous. It also took them 5 weeks to review my code, and they changed the job ad in the meantime to make it more restrictive.

      Interview questions [1]

      Question 1

      We want the cost of switching from the included feed to another foreign exchange rate provider to be low.
      Answer question
      1
      avatar
      FreeAgent response
      7y
      Hello, I'm sorry that you didn't have a positive experience. With our graduate and intern roles we do take a little longer to move through the various stages. This is partly due to the number of candidates that apply and also due to the likely start dates. In terms of your code review, if you'd like some more detailed feedback please get in touch, we're more than happy to provide this. In relation to the advert we recently changed many of our adverts and brought this one into line. We also decided to be more explicit about the criteria for the role as previously we were receiving applications from several candidates without any relevant studies or experience. Lastly in regards to the test, we do take on feedback and regularly review the clarity of the requirements and instructions. Even this week we made a change which we feel will remove another potential area of ambiguity there. We're open to people reapplying over time and we'd encourage you to keep us in mind in future. As I said, I'd be more than happy to try and get more feedback for you. Best wishes, Katie