Position was at iptiQ, but advertised by Swiss Re.
First round: a HackerRank test with some simple coding excercises, single and multiple choice questions about HTTP and REST.
After completing it I received the next task from the hiring manager: a coding challenge to implement a load balancer according to a short specification. It's not especially difficult, but takes more time than what the description stated (2 hours).
I sent my solution only to get an automatic reply in a few days informing me that the company will not pursue my candidacy.
I spent considerable time with this application, still I have received no feedback. Did they even checked my code? I didn't have any contact with humans, safe to say that my time was completely wasted.
Fellow candidates, please think about it before you sink in your hours of work.
This is a review of iptiQ. Since SwissRe advertises jobs for iptiQ on SwissRe and not iptiQ, I think it's appropriate to post this here. The dehumanized process starts with an easy hackerrank challenge with leetcode about pagination, recursion, array sum, position of new element in array and multiple / single choice questions about dependency injection, general HTTP, HTTP headers, immutable objects and threads vs. processes. The next task was a coding challenge, i.e. implementing a load balancer with special attention to principles like SOLID, DRY, YAGNI etc. However, I cancelled the process right there because of the total lack of contact to any human working at / recruiting for this company that would get to know my motivations etc. and who I could ask questions. It was so blatantly obvious that they, whoever that is, would be much more inclined to ghost an applicant they would have never talked to, so I considered the process incl. the artificial coding challenge, to which anyone could look up a solution online, a waste of time and proceeded with the other companies I was interviewing with, absolutely none of which expects that much from a candidate before any actual interview with a human being is arranged. Engineers, please do know how much your time is worth & don't put up with bs processes like this one except if you're really desperate / have lots of time to spare
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Swiss Re (Zürich)
Interview
First they screen you via hackerrank, threating you like a commodity. They do this to save on the recruitment process, they must receive hundreds of applications. Then they invite you for an interview. To my surprise, coding again.. they asked "do you have a laptop, we need to make a code exercise", hello... and you say it to me now that I had to code today? Like I had a laptop in my pants, and after coming all the way to Zürich, to code 3 Java loops? You must be kidding me. The interviewer asking nasty questions like "are you married" and so forth, completely incompetent and clueless about the most basic interview laws.
STAY AWAY!!!