Castlight Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process is pretty straightforward. If you've practiced medium-level LeetCode problems, understand your core concepts well, and can talk about your past projects, you should be good. There are a total of 4 technical rounds: the first is L1 Coding, the second is L2 Coding & Fundamentals, the third is L3 focusing on Language & Fundamentals, and the final one is the Hiring Manager Round.

I applied online and got contacted by Recruiter #1 about a week later. We chatted, and he asked me about my salary expectations within the first 5 minutes. I told him $X, and he said it was in range and that he'd pass it on to the hiring manager. About a week later, Recruiter #1 set up a phone screen with an engineer, which was a normal coding and algorithms interview. Recruiter #1 then emailed me again, this time CC'ing Recruiter #2, who is higher up. She told me they wanted to move me to the onsite stage. Recruiter #1 had also CC'd Recruiter #2 on our earlier conversation emails, so everything seemed transparent. I went for the onsite, did great in all my interviews, and Recruiter #2 called me a few days later to say they were ready to make an offer. Then Recruiter #2 called me to ask my desired salary again. I was confused since Recruiter #1 already knew and she was CC'd. I repeated $X, and she said it was way out of range, which surprised me because Recruiter #1 had told me it was fine. She didn't know why he said that and implied they wouldn't be happy if experienced people made less than me. She also said financial info tends to get out. I said I'd be open to an offer with a lower salary for more equity or flexibility. She agreed and said she'd get back to me in a week. It's been four months, and I haven't heard back, so I guess they went with someone else. They seem to have communication and internal process issues.

The recruiter scheduled a call, but didn't show up. I let her know I was waiting, and she didn't even apologize before rescheduling. The second attempt also resulted in a missed call. After emailing again, I waited 20 minutes for the third scheduled time. I went back to my desk as it was during the workday, and she finally called. I missed it, so I went outside to call her back and left a message. She called again after that whole mess. The recruiter didn't ask me anything and complained about background noise, which was understandable since I had just stepped outside the building to take her call. They should really respect people's time and apologize when they make mistakes.