The process started with a referral. As I understand, this does not give you priority over others. The interview proceed in five stages: 1. Initial call from a recruiter 2. Pair programming session 3. Technical interview 4. Cultural interview 5. Leadership interview Every interviewer was really empathetic and listened more than talked. Nobody felt like they were out to 'trip me up' or judge me like in previous companies. The stages are now described in more detail. == 1. Initial call from a recruiter == The recruiter will invite you to book a time slot for a call. We talked about my experience, my job expectations and administration details like my notice period, right to work status and salary ballpark. Very pleasant, it felt like I was just talking to a mate. The conversation felt authentic, two-way and I did not feel treated like 'just another lead' as was felt in some other processes. == 2. Pair Programming Session == A pair programming session was scheduled to assess my collaborative and development skills. You take the driving seat while another person observes over Zoom. You are given a link to the code base before you start so you can spend some time to get familiar with it. It is presented as a full scenario with a simulated customer and some user stories to work on, although access to the user story was only available to me during the interview. Here they are looking for development practices rather than problem solving skills. Seeing how you tackle problems more than what is accomplished, there was no rush to the session. ThoughtWorks, being known for its agile software development approach, is naturally looking for somebody practicing TDD and continuous integration. Also somebody who is able to pair effectively, through talking through code as it is written. Again, very pleasant and I learnt a little about the programming environment. We took little breaks and talked about pets while having some coffee. == 3. Technical Interview == Next was a technical interview. There was relatively little material going into this one so I felt anxiety. I was concerned that it might go into a detail or require a problem solution I was unprepared for. The actual interview didn't require any problem solving but was more of a deep dive into my experience. There were many tough questions to qualify that I knew what I was saying. We diagramed a bit what the architecture was like in my previous projects and I was encouraged to critique it. It was a far more stressful experience for me compared to the previous interview, but I can appreciate that the purpose of the session was to stretch my ability and see what expertise and thinking I could lend. == 4. Cultural Interview == The cultural interview was a chat with two other ThoughtWorkers to assess whether I could fit into the ThoughtWorks culture. The chat was structured with a series of card with questions on. They were seeking to reveal my ability to: reflect on past experience, show empathy and appreciate issues of diversity and inclusion. This was not so stressful and I don't think it has to be for anybody. If you be yourself, express your opinions and be tolerant of others. == 5. Leadership Interview == To my relief, after having felt nervous about the technical interview outcome, I received a request to meet one of the leadership team at ThoughtWorks. My interview was with a 'head of delivery' who forms part of the project-specific leadership, more specialised to project management as I understand. It was supposed to be a general chat about wider questions about the company. Most of it was driven from questions I had prepared about how the company structure works and what sorts of clients were being engaged with at the moment. Again, as with all others, we had a great chat. I learned lots as we talked about company culture and to what extent organisations can change through consulting. == Concluding Thoughts == This was maybe the 9th interview process I've had in the industry. It was undoubtably the most rigorous and the longest yet somehow only moderately stressful and the process I have learnt the most through. I would recommend it to anybody, because I think even if you don't get an offer you are guaranteed to learn something.