Braintree Interview Questions
& Process

The interview had 4 parts. First was a knowledge session about my general work. For me, they asked about database design and some security terms. This might change for other people, they just want to see if you can talk technically. Then, there was a pairing session where we improved the application code I submitted. There was also a small culture session, which was during lunch, basically a casual chat about how I work with people. Finally, a design session where I had to design a ticketing app.

It started with a quick phone call, then a take-home coding challenge where I had to build two alerting utilities. I did well on that and got good feedback. After that, I had a phone call with two engineers. The next step was a full day onsite with multiple sessions, each with two engineers. These sessions were hands-on, not tricky. One involved working on a live Linux system, tackling different scenarios, doing Linux OS tests, and a quick coding task to parse log data. I felt I nailed the coding and scenario discussions, and gave them the solutions they were looking for, but surprisingly didn't get an offer. The interview experience itself was quite good, but the outcome was disappointing, especially after putting in so much effort and time, getting spot-on results and positive feedback all along, only to fail in the end. I really thought I should have gotten the job. This company is constantly interviewing, which seems like they're rejecting a lot of good engineers. That's a lot of pressure on us. Also, communication after the interview was lacking. The hiring manager said a decision would be made in a day, but I waited three days and then got a call from the recruiter late on a Friday.

The interview process was rough. The HR person kept messing up my name and scheduling calls when I wasn't free. This went on for weeks before we finally set a time, but then on the day of, they wanted to reschedule. The phone interview itself was okay, but they still got my name wrong. Then I had a writing sample, which was easy. The actual interview was nice, I liked the chats, and even though doing logic puzzles out loud was hard on my anxiety, I was glad to have done it. The receptionist's badge even had my name right, just misspelled. Then I got a rejection email that also got my name wrong. I asked for feedback via email twice and never heard back. Overall, for a process with multiple steps, a long interview, and stressful logic puzzles, the way they treated me was pretty bad. Constantly getting my name wrong and not responding to feedback requests? I really hope they treat their employees better.

So the whole thing took like 2 months, start to finish. First, a recruiter from Venmo in NYC hit me up about the job. After about a week, they sent over an invite for a phone chat with the hiring manager and another IT support person, also in NYC. Then I had to wait another 2 weeks before they invited me to their NYC office for a 2-hour 'cultural fit' interview with 3 people. Another week went by and they asked me to fly to Chicago for a final onsite. I got there Thursday afternoon and Friday was the big day: a 4-hour interview block. It included a chat with 2 engineers, a lunch with 3 folks from the team, and then a practical, hands-on tech test with the hiring manager and an engineer. Heard back the next Monday from the recruiter saying he'd have a decision by the end of the day. Didn't actually hear anything for another week, then got the final word.