I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Yahoo (New York, NY) in Oct 2016
Interview
It was a long, whole-day interview. I was expecting to give a talk about some topic that is related to my research. Before and after I met 6-7 research scientists or programmers who were asking various questions related to ML topics. The interviewers were really friendly and helpful. I got free food, coffee and cakes.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
online learning, large-scale learning, coding in java, ML solutions mainly related to some information retrieval
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Yahoo
Interview
The entire process took about 3 weeks. The communication was perfect, beyond perfect. I've interviewed at many top tech firms in terms of reputation and opportunity. Yahoo! was an exception. The recruiter guided me through each step. I knew from the very beginning the timeframe which was then continuously updated. There was no mystery. No weird subcommittees and internal processes I wasn't privilege to. It was all crystal clear.
It is the first time in my entire work-life experience that I have met a recruiter who was working with me towards an excellent package that was also fair to the current employees. The recruiter and I had a collaborative relationship. I will now hire and look forward to working with this recruiter on the other side of the table. I never could have anticipated how beyond the team, manager, and vision, the recruiter would contribute so highly to my positive outlook of the culture in the organization.
I loved the honesty of everyone there, and the great energy I met when I interviewed. Everyone I met on the team was extraordinarily professional, fully engaged, and creative around their interview questions. I knew I wanted to work with every single person in my interview loop on real problems and research. There was such a good energy, people seem all compelled to have impact in a healthy collaborative way. It is also a real equal opportunity company. Truly impressive.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I had advanced software engineering questions from two technical interviewers, but the questions were well structured and fairly assessed my ability to structure and write code in an R+D environment. The worst is when you're in a technical interview and the technical interviewer has something to prove for whatever reason. This couldn't be further from the case at Yahoo! Even on the technical side, I was being tested as to my ability to collaborative meaningfully on technical topics while maintaining a high level of individual contribution. Whether the question was about software or other topics, the intention from the interviewer was always the right one.