I applied through an employee referral. I interviewed at Rubicon Project (Los Angeles, CA) in Jan 2016
Interview
Technical coding test via skype. Since this was my first interview in a decade, i was just expecting this to be a phone screen asking my work history and answering some general questions. Unknown to be, its the new wave of Algo/DS coding interview. Questions consist of doing some sql and coding some algo over skype screenshare.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
write some sql with right join tables, ifnull function
I applied in-person. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Rubicon Project (Los Angeles, CA) in July 2015
Interview
The project manager approached me in Linkedin. When the project manager said they handle billions and even trillion of transactions that got my attention. I had one phone conversation with the manager, one hour skype interview and 4 hours on site interviews with 5 people. The interviewers were nice not intimidating hence helped me think clearly. When I got stuck in the interview, I could ask for some hint to the interviewers for some directions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Find the longest ascending sequence in integer array
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Rubicon Project (Los Angeles, CA) in Apr 2015
Interview
Interview process started with a recruiter getting in touch, understanding my skills, experience and fit for the position etc, then setting up a technical phone screen within the next couple weeks.
Phone screen had a friendly interviewer who asked a couple of interesting algorithmic/coding problems, nothing too hard but not straightforward either (first one is simple, the next one builds on it etc). He encouraged me further down the correct path to reach the optimal solution.
We then set up an on site interview in L.A. for a couple weeks later.
The onsite was organized well, 'Bet' added a nice personal touch by writing a "Welcome xyz !" message on the whiteboard which was sweet !
I met with 5 people in all, including the co-founder & CIO (since this was for a small core team) who gave details about the company, culture, technical aspects of the job, etc & also asked more general & system design related questions.
The first meeting with the CIO was followed by an engineer with further algorithmic/coding problems on whiteboard and a quick lunch, followed by the technical co-founder with system design questions, then another engineer with a coding problem (to be solved directly on his laptop) followed by a brief session with the HR.
A total time of around 4 hours onsite & a pleasant experience with friendly, cool & talented folks.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Problems on the same lines of what you find in interview prep books like Cracking the Coding interview (I shuda solved a lot more stuff from there instead of skimming through chapters)