I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1+ week. I interviewed at Plenty of Fish
Interview
Really quick, met with HR and COO, also with dev leads. All very nice people. Did not take long at all to make an offer and the experience was very pleasant. I was in an out in two hours so no time wastings which I appreciated.
Multiple rounds of interviews, like 5 I think, it was a very long and exhausting process. But all the interviewers were very nice throughout the process, especially the recruiter who was very responsive to my follow ups.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe what a race condition is and give an example.
Thank you for taking the time to share your interview experience! While we understand that multiple rounds can be exhausting, we strive to ensure each candidate has a thorough and positive experience. We're glad to hear that our team was responsive and supportive throughout. We appreciate your feedback!
There was several coding challenges and then architecture design. It went smoothly although the process is longer than expected. Interview was remote which is nice. I would recommend as everyone was friendly.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Plenty of Fish (Vancouver, BC) in Oct 2018
Interview
After a phone screen, I had three rounds of on-site interview
1A- Interview with the engineering manager. Mostly general questions, and a system design question
1B- Just after that, interview with 3 software engineers. I got specific questions about databases, a whiteboard coding question and a class diagram question
2- HR + engineering manager - questions about my previous jobs
3- Extra interview with an architect on a class design question. Given what I've been told before the interview, this extra interview is not part of the standard process.
Not a great experience overall. For the most part, the technical people don't seem to be used to interviewing.
But the biggest problem for me was the responsiveness of the company. They always said they would come back to me within a day or two but never did. This became a problem in the later stages of my job search, as my email asking for a status update (sent a week after the last interview) was ignored for another week... Without news from Plenty of Fish, I assumed that they weren't interested and took another offer.
I was very disappointed that after taking the time to come to the office 3 times, I couldn't get an answer to a simple emailed request for a status update.
I was reflecting on the irony of being ghosted by a dating app when I did get an answer after a week (ie 2 weeks after the date they were supposed to get back to me). They still seemed interested in me, but it was too late at that point unfortunately.
It's too bad because the engineering team looks solid. I expect that Plenty of Fish is missing on good candidates because of the recruitment process.
Thank you for your feedback and we are sorry to hear you didn’t have a positive experience. I can assure this is not reflective of the standards we expect when interviewing.
We always strive to create a positive candidate experience and agree that communication is important to ensure we bring out the best in a candidate. I’d like to offer you the opportunity to discuss it further so we learn from your feedback, so please feel free to email hr@pof.com.