I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at First Republic (San Francisco, CA) in Mar 2018
Interview
Interviewing for a data scientist role, it is a contractor position but I was not aware of it until the phone screen. The interviewer mainly uses R and SQL. And asked odd questions like how to define a loop in SQL which is not necessary since it can be done in R and Python. And most importantly, the job post did not specify it is a contractor position. Not very professional.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Do you have any experiences in predicting loan default?
I applied in-person. The process took 3 months. I interviewed at First Republic (San Francisco, CA)
Interview
The whole process is tedious and random. They are really preservative about their culture, I guess that's the reason why I have to go through 4-5 rounds of meet-up/interviews. The first 2 rounds are just meet-ups, the manager introduced their culture, company, and why the First Republic Bank is different from other mega-banks, after that is the take-home assignment; and after that is the one whole day (9-6) on-site interview, if you are lucky, there is one additional follow-up interview. To be honest, I really enjoy the take-home assignment, but I feel a lack of respect during the interview process. First, the whole process took way too much time, almost 3 months since the first meet-up. Second, they canceled/rescheduled the interview multiple times . Third, the on-site interview questions are not quite relevant to the role and not well organized.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How could small banks like us compete with mega-banks?