Recently interviewed for a Software Engineering role at The Key through a recruitment agency (SR2 who i would also recommend) and had a pleasant experience. It was a three stage interview process which is common for the field and consisted of:
1 - Initial interview with the head of engineering, Pretty standard going over your CV and work experience. This stage was not overly technical in regards to fine details but more getting a grasp of your overall knowledge of technologies and how you have applied them. Discussions about The Key and it's product offering alongside the culture of both the engineering team and business as a whole. Ending with a QnA session that i found enjoyable, really got a chance to ask and discuss anything regarding the role, technologies and wider business.
2 - Take home technical assessment that is performed by a third party company. This is time limited from when the brief is opened (2 hours). Task is small in size allowing for the time limit, but has enough complexities to allow for you to flex your technical knowledge. Feedback is provided by the third party testing platform and was thorough. This was a breath of fresh air as many recruitment processes provide minimal or non existent feedback.
3 - The final stage is a panel interview. This was again with the head of engineering alongside the product design lead and a member of the front end team. A round robin format is used with each panel member having pre-prepared a mixture of technical, behavioural and scenario based questions. We then briefly touched on the technical test, the panel were satisfied with the third parties feedback so not overly in depth at this stage. Again, this finished with a QnA round with the entire panel and some open discussion about the role, current goals and challenges the team are facing.
