BuildASign.com

Application

I applied online. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at BuildASign.com (Austin, TX) in June 2013.

Interview

I applied for the position through the BuildASign.com website, and was contacted the next day by their recruiter, who helped me schedule a phone interview with a manager from the development team. The phone interview was very short (about half an hour), and covered some basic screening questions on C#, SQL, and general web and programming concepts. He also told me a little about the company and answered some questions I had.

Later that day I received an e-mail asking if I'd be interested in a full interview, and we were able to schedule it for the following week. After arriving, I was given a brief tour of the offices and got introduced around, then sat down for the interview itself. The process lasted about six or seven hours. Everyone was extremely friendly and supportive, but I have to admit that it was a fairly stressful experience. There was nothing inappropriate or unusual about it, it was just long and very thorough.

In the morning there were three one-hour sessions with groups of two interviewers, each one covering a different topic like programming language features, database design and querying, a whiteboard coding problem, design patterns and architecture, and a couple logic puzzles somewhere between brainteasers and "20 questions." They also took an interest in things I had listed on my resume that weren't strictly relevant to the position (and corrected a few misunderstandings!), which was nice.

We then took a break for lunch, which gave me a chance to meet the rest of the development team and just relax a little and have fun. Again, everyone was very friendly and welcoming. The managers gave us some space, and I was encouraged to ask any questions I wanted and "get the dirt" about working for the company.

After lunch there was a series of shorter meetings with senior developers and managers, focusing less on technical questions and more on my interests and goals and the philosophy of the company. I got a tour of the production facility across the street, after which two of the managers sat me down, we did one last puzzle question (which I bombed), and then they went through some of my strengths and weaknesses throughout the day, and surprised me by making an offer. I had to leave quickly to catch my flight, so we worked out the details by e-mail over the weekend.

Interview Questions

Negotiation

They held firm with their initial offer, but it was competitive and so I was happy to accept.