The interview process started with a non-technical background screening by a recruiter over the phone that took about 30 minutes. This was followed by a three-question technical screening interview that took about 15 minutes.
After passing the background screening and technical screening, I had to send several messages to the recruiter before they finally responded to schedule two more full technical interviews.
The first full technical interview was a practical “design this simple application” test. The second interview was an “algorithms puzzlers” interview like what Google famously gives to its applicants. As such, I would recommend that anyone who wants a job at Stack Exchange should do what Google tells their applicants to do: read a book on data algorithms before you interview.
All of the technical interviews, including the screening interview, were conducted with video using Google Hangouts. Code was written in a Google Docs document. Use of an actual code editor or compiler/interpreter was forbidden.
When questioned the interviewers about what specific projects I could be expected to work on if I were to join the company, I was never given a clear answer. I was told during the background interview that they were looking for people to work on the core Stack Exchange product and on Stack Exchange Careers, but the final interview they gave me was with someone that was part of some analytics team and did not know anything about what those other groups were doing.
During the process I did not get the impression that the technical interviewers had taken time to review any information about me before the interviews, as I had to re-explain who I was and what I had done both times.
After my application was rejected, the recruiter did not respond to any follow-ups.
(Note: This interview was conducted 100% remotely, but Glassdoor does not currently allow interviews to be submitted without a city name.)
