I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 days. I interviewed at Revolut in Sep 2022
Interview
Too many theoretical questions by a non-technical recruiter. She read questions from her screen and after I started not to answer the questions properly, she told me I should not proceed because the following interview processes will be even harder.
I felt like I'm back at the university where I should cram all the answers to the questions to get a good grade, but later I'll forget everything I studied anyway..
I'm a practitioner, I can tell you what I worked on in detail, what systems/technologies I have been using, what I know about programming, the languages, the related libraries. What difficulties I faced in my career, what results I achieved in my carrier.. etc.
She told me the working hours are flexible, but there can be strict deadlines and big stress. This company is a big no-no. Feels like this company is not for creative people, but for people who know the answers to scripted questions..
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Pre-made, scripted questions:
- Which Java versions did I use for how long?
- Concurrency questions like optimistic/pessimistic locking, concurrency difficulties at my current job
- Data structure questions like time complexities of a hashmap..
- Database questions like what does ACID stand for? What data type an index is made of? What isolation level is my current project is on?
etcetc.
HR -> Live coding -> Tech -> System design
Overall the before starting the recruitment process it's worth mastering concurrency, DB(especially PostgresSQL), and transaction management. Company seems to be working mostly with Java, Kotlin and a little with Scala
I got contacted by a recruiter. As a first step, I had a call with another recruiter. He was also asking technical questions, but it felt strange. (A bit like talking to a wall.)
I was rejected with a generic message stating that I was not "aligned with the position". This is weird as it was inbound and based on my profile. No feedback, of course.
Waste of time.
Very kind. The questions weren’t easy, but with knowledge of database configurations, concurrency, locks, and some practical experience, you are able to answer them clearly, confidently, and effectively overall. It was good time.