Twitch Interview Questions

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 6 days. I interviewed at Twitch.

Interview

Referred internally, heard from a recruiter, and then did a tech screen. Person doing the tech screen was pretty rude to me and didn’t seem to want to be there. When I less than a day later got a generic rejection, I wasn’t shocked, but it made what would have been sadness over the rejection just the sense that I dodged a bullet.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. I interviewed at Twitch.

Interview

I applied online and heard from HR within a month or so. Normal HR screening interview, resume sent to the hiring manager, and then a phone interview with the hiring manager. Which I have to say was one of my best interviews ever. By 45 minutes, we were talking and sharing ideas like a couple guys who had worked together for years. That interview ended with the hiring manager telling me that if I passed the SQL screening, they would bring me in for a round of in-person interviews.

So I was pretty optimistic going into the next stage, which is an online SQL test with Coderpad. Unfortunately, although Coderpad has an actual working PostgreSQL environment with some data, the SQL screening was in plain text/white board mode. Typing only, no way to run anything. And unfortunately, the Twitch data analyst doing the SQL screening was at a level of SQL maturity where he expects that the way he would do it is the only right answer. I have about 15 years more SQL experience than this guy, 15 years where I've known every day that I would not have a job tomorrow if I delivered a wrong result. So I've developed a very clean, cautious, rigorous style, the interviewer called it out right away. I tried to do it his way, I had SQL for everything he asked, but he still failed me on the SQL screen. It was a little ironic, and it was unfortunate that my job application was vetoed by an emotional and subjective process.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Twitch.

Interview

As much as Twitch wants to be inclusive, they just aren't. Their hiring and evaluation process has much room for improvement. After the initial phone screen, I spoke with the hiring manager and then had another call with another member of the team. Don't expect them to be on time. Every single call was at least 15 minutes late. One was rescheduled and then was a full hour late. Have some respect for the candidate's time.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Twitch (San Francisco, CA).

Interview

Basic phone screen followed up with an hour SQL session via CodePad. Thought it went well from a completion standpoint as I was able to go through each problem that was asked. However, interviewer left zero time for me to ask questions at the end, received no further communication from the recruiter, and finally received an auto generated email a week later. I can see why the average rating for Twitch is below 3 stars.

Interview Questions

Interview

Spoke to the recruiter who then scheduled a tech phone screen with the hiring manager.
Had a pleasant chat with the hiring manager where he asked me about my previous project and other stuff from my resume.
Moved on to coderpad where he pasted a question and told me that he expected a working solution in 30 minutes.
I solved the question and even printed out the solution and he said that it was correct although he did mention that this was "one of the ways to do it". But nonetheless the solution i provided indeed worked and it seemed to work fine and for 30 minutes I thought i did pretty well to get a working solution.
Obviously as all tech interviews go, managers these days settle for nothing less than a unicorn when it comes to coding. After the interview , I googled the question to see if there was a solution which did not strike me. Turns out the question is a known algorithm called Reservoir Sampling and the question was an adaptation of it.
To be fair after reading the algorithm and the implementation , i realized the solution i had provided also worked in a similar fashion but apparently the hiring manager was looking for me to tell him that this was a reservoir sampling problem.

I was very excited to interview at Twitch and even the hiring manager seemed very nice and humble. He never once pointed out whether i was not going in the right direction or gave me a hint as to how he wanted me to solve the problem. I wish managers these days did not have such unrealistically high demands from engineers and instead judge people on whether they are getting a working solution or not, if you just want a coding nerd who knows each and every algorithm from the Cormen algorithm book then I wish you guys best of luck in the future!

Interview Questions

Application

I applied in-person. The process took 4+ weeks. I interviewed at Twitch in May 2018.

Interview

I had interviewed at Twitch previously and they reached out to me asking if I was interested in a role they had to offer. Chatted with the hiring manager, and was brought on for an onsite the following week. Loop was a combination of Product, TPMs, Devs, EMs, and Hiring Mgr.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2+ weeks. I interviewed at Twitch (San Francisco, CA).

Interview

Standard non-technical screen with recruiter that lead to a 1 hour technical phone screen. Technical phone screen question wasn’t too hard, standard medium level leetcode questions. Made a few mistakes that I fixed as I solved the problem, and ultimately arrived at an optimal and working solutions within a reasonable amount of time.

However, entire process between HR and the technical screen was convoluted and unorganized. Last minute changes to my interviewer and time slot, confusion about role details, etc. Twitch never even got back to me about my technical interview results. I emailed them a few times and they didn’t reply. Unprofessional to waste candidates time...

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Twitch.

Interview

2 quick phone calls. In general the hiring manager seemed misguided in whom they were targeting. They wanted non-gamers, but ultimately it was a deal breaker that I was a non-gamer. Very confusing. Hope they find the right fit.

Interview Questions

Interview

First there is an online coding assessment. Its not hard at all, the only difference from other interviews is that it asked a frontend question (coding in JS), but I was applying a full stack position so its not completely out of the norm.

Then the onsite interview. There were 5 interviews total. First interview was meeting with the hiring manager. It was hardest to prepare because the recruiter said he could ask anything he wants, behavioral, technical, coding, anything. At the end the hiring manager only ask behavioral questions, but this is where I suspect I didn't get an offer, because I feel I did pretty well for the rest of the day.

Then there were two coding interviews (lunch in between). One was about algorithm, which wasn't hard, anyone knows how to iterate an array and using hashmap should be able to do it. The second is about able to use the Twitch API to get some data and process the results. The coding interviews are not hard at all. They ran out of questions to ask before the interviews end.

Then the next interview was with a senior UX designer. It was mostly talking about my past experience.

The last interview was system design. It was a question about how to design a particular feature of Twitch. The question itself was a pretty typical question of system design. It would help if you know or use Twitch (the product) before.

Interview Questions

Application

I applied online. The process took a week. I interviewed at Twitch in April 2018.

Interview

The interview process was pretty simple. After applying for the position online, I got a mail from a recruiter to schedule a talk for 20-30 min. After that, the recruiter asked me to give available dates for a phone interview. The phone interview was with the hiring manager of the team. The manager asked a simple coding question, which I was able to solve. Then he went on to tell me about the team, the work they are doing currently and finally thanked me for the time before finishing the interview.

Interview Questions