BrightRoll Software Engineer interview questions

My experience was a new grad interviewing for a Software Engineer position. I've done dozens of interviews as a student with companies in Silicon Valley, including bigger companies like Google and Microsoft, but the interview process at BrightRoll was one of the more unique I've had. BrightRoll certainly vets their employees well as the entire process wasn't short, but I was left with a solid sense of the culture there and had some of the more entertaining questions I've had in an interview. Career Fair Intro Met a BrightRoll engineer at my school's career fair to whom I talked about my experience and handed my resume. He put my name down on a list for phone screens. Recruiter Phone Screen Pretty standard stuff for technical positions, first I talked with a non-technical recruiter than runs through the list of questions/topics they have and if you seem like you know what you're talking about and have enough of the right check marks you make it through. 1:1 Technical Interview Also fairly standard next step for technical positions, next I spoke with an engineer in a little more detail about my resume and experience. He asked a couple brief and not too challenging coding and basic algorithms questions before talking about the position more and my potential role at the company. The whole call probably lasted 45 minutes. Coding Simulation This is where things started to get interesting and is probably the first time I could ever say I genuinely had fun as part of an interview process. This time instead of writing code in a collabedit or Google Doc, it was an hour long Skype interview where I was given a task (mine was a simple browser game, but it seems to vary based on the specific role you're interested in) and told to just code it using whatever tools I wanted. The engineer was there to answer any questions I had, and I was free to use Google or any documentation I wanted. I REALLY appreciated this type of interview because I always thought the standard software engineer interview didn't accurately represent day-to-day job performance, but this did quite well, and I actually ended up really enjoying myself! Onsite Interview Once I passed the first couple rounds they brought me out for an onsite. It took a whole day and was incredibly draining but offered a great deal of insight into the company, and I had more than enough time to get all of my questions answered. The day consisted of a technical 1:1 interview in the morning focused on general algorithms and coding ability, knowledge of the whole web stack, etc, followed by a lunch with a couple different team members, followed by three more 1:1 interviews, the first with a very role-specific focus (I was front-end so very nitty gritty JavaScript questions) and the other two with more personality and culture fit kinds of conversations without specific questions (not the typical stupid behavioral questions like 'What's your greatest weakness?' but just candid conversations about work style and what excited me about the field in general). Finally, the day was over, and I got a call later that day with an offer. Highlights What really impressed me the most about the entire process was the completely transparent feedback that was given after each step. I was used to companies opaquely saying they were either going to continue to next steps or 'pursue other candidates at this time', but BrightRoll gave concrete feedback at each round that I really appreciated. It let me know what about my application they found exciting or valuable and that in turn said a lot about what type of work I'd be doing there and if I'd be a great fit. Not to mention it was a comfort to be validated in the midst of a sea of faceless interactions with companies where you never hear from your interviewer again! Cons The process did take a while and was on the higher end for number of steps before getting an offer, but definitely worth the effort if you're passionate about building great tech and wanting to work with the best people! You also get the sense that BrightRoll is very intense from the early interviews which was off-putting at first, but it seems largely part of the vetting process to find serious candidates as the coding sim and onsite interviews were much more relaxed once basic competency was established.

First I had a phone call with a recruiter, who asked me general questions about what I've been doing and what I was looking for. Then I had a phone call with a technical manager who asked me some light technical questions, including "What happens when you click a link in a web browser?" Then I came in an did a 1 hour "code simulation" where I was handed a computer and asked to perform a task in my preferred technology in 1 hour. Then I had an on-site interview which lasted most of the day. I met with 6-8 people, whose objectives were to dig into my resume, ask me technical algorithm/data structures questions, a lunch interview which was more casual, and finally a technical interview about my technology. Finally I spoke with another technical manager who was there to answer any questions I had.