I applied online. I interviewed at KAYAK (Boston, MA) in Sep 2015
Interview
First contacted by recruiter via email - never had a call. Then was given very simple programming exercise with 2 questions that you HAVE TO do in Java only: 1) mars robot that takes L-left R- right F-forward sequence of commands, you need to output the location coordinates. Very easy question. 2) a. Create function that print sequence of numbers from a to b without using loop - very easy recursive solution (ex, give a=0, b=5, print 0,1,2,4,5). Second part of the question is to modify the function and make it count from a to b and then back to a, again without using loop. Can be easily solved with static variable that hold the direction specifier. Submitted the solution, in 2 days received the reject. I have no idea what is wrong with it, it's very simple problems (like 15 lines of code each) that I had tested and supplied test cases. Oh maybe the variable names were not very explicit or function names were not catchy? Oh well, I don't want to deal with place like that either
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
1) mars robot that takes L-left R- right F-forward sequence of commands, you need to output the location coordinates. Very easy question. 2) a. Create function that print sequence of numbers from a to b without using loop - very easy recursive solution (ex, give a=0, b=5, print 0,1,2,4,5). Second part of the question modify the function and make it count from a to b and then back to a, again without using loop
Very simple. Not much. It can be improved. It had several bad questions. Some were not working . Their own system was not working well lol. So the interview experience was really bad to be honest. I don’t have much to say.
The interview process was smooth and professional until the final step. Unfortunately, during this stage, the interviewer seemed unprepared, relying solely on my CV for information rather than conducting a structured discussion. The questions felt random rather than tailored to the role, and there was no clear agenda.
Additionally, the interviewer was unaware of the scheduled duration, and the meeting ran twice as long as planned. Even when I pointed out that we had exceeded the allocated time and needed to conclude, the interview continued. Given the professionalism of the earlier stages, I had expected this final step to be equally well-organized.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How to resolve a conflict between two team members
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at KAYAK in Oct 2024
Interview
The recruiter sent me a take-home assignment and require me to finish it within 5 business days. There is no introduction call or other interactions. After I finish the assignment, the recruiter became ghosted and never heard any updates. It seems they are not going to proceed the hiring process. Those assignments are like been sent by bots.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Print your name. Print your answer to the hybrid setting. A hotel booking problem. They gave you all the classes and you need to complete them. Optimize the code to support high concurrency situation.
