INFORMAL CALL ------------------------- I first had an informal phone call with the COO, where I was given an overview of the company and given an opportunity to ask any questions I had (throughout the entire process, everyone was very open to answering any questions I had). The COO was very passionate about both technology and WillowTree and the call was enjoyable. PHONE INTERVIEW ------------------------- Soon after, I was in contact with a recruiter and she helped me set up a technical phone interview. With the technical phone interview, I didn't have to do any programming. I talked about a handful of projects that I've worked on and explained the processes I take while working on projects. TAKE-HOME PROJECT ------------------------- After the phone interview, I had to complete a project to showcase my coding skills. The project was very open ended, allowing you to complete the task in pretty much any way that you wanted to. The time spent was limited to 8 hours. ONSITE INTERVIEW ------------------------- The last step was an in person interview, which would last an entire day. They covered both transportation, and housing for the night before my interview. I stayed at a very nice bed and breakfast which was a five minute walk away from their office. The day of the interview I was given a tour of the office. I then had my first (of four) one-on-one interviews. Each of the interviews had 3-4 behavioral questions (they asked the same questions to see how my answers would evolve throughout the day). The first one didn't involve me looking at any code because part of the time slot was devoted to giving me an overview of what the day would look like. We talked about projects I had worked on and talked about how I tackled my take-home project. The next interview (in addition to the behavioral questions) was dedicated to the take-home project. I gave an overview of the entire project. I then was given a task to extend the functionality of my project. I added the new functionality while explaining my thought processes to the interviewer. After the two interviews, I went to lunch with four WillowTree members. It was an opportunity for me to ask about WillowTree and get to know some of my potential teammates. After lunch, I had another interview. This interview got into the details of Swift as a language. Unfortunately, I haven't done much with Swift (other than a few side projects) so I had difficulties with this. The interviewer was able to pick up on this, so we went in a different direction and started talking about a course I'm currently in (Computational Photography) and he gave me a programming problem related to that. The last interview delved into the details of JavaScript as a language. Thankfully, I had more experience with this and was able to answer these questions properly. After all the interviews, I chatted with the VP of Engineering where I was given the opportunity to ask any last questions I had. He also asked me for any ways that the interview process could be improved. I received my offer the next day (in the morning). TAKEAWAYS ------------------------- Overall, I was very impressed with the interview process. The time between my very first call and my offer was less than a month. For the onsite, I was expecting to be asked generic programming questions where I'd be showing my knowledge of Big-O. The interviews were more tailored towards showing knowledge of languages. I recommend that future interviewees have a handful of experiences in the back of their mind that they can use for the behavioral questions as it is a core part of the interview.

Let me be clear up front: the actual hiring team was one of the most glowing interview experiences I've ever had. The problem is that the *company* made it into one of the most horrific interview experiences I've ever had. Their culture interview raised one of the greenest flags I've ever encountered in an interview -- "what does psychological safety mean to you?" But as much as I can believe the individuals who asked me this, the thing is... when WillowTree says they value psychological safety, WillowTree is lying. Because they have no problem rescinding a job offer if you ask too many questions after reading the fine print. (On an incredibly related note, Glassdoor needs a 4th option when asking about whether you got one.) Now that wasn't even the *only* lie. Adding insult to injury, these people had the audacity to then send me *a candidate survey* afterward, with the subject line "we'd love your feedback." Now, I understand that this is automated, but if you're using automation in your processes, you're also responsible for using it better than that. Even in the best case, soliciting feedback, after pulling a job offer on someone for any reason, is comically terrible. This piece alone alone is easily the most spectacular failure I have encountered interviewing for any job anywhere. There's deserving to get embarrassed by the ways your processes go sideways, and then there's *literally asking for it.*