Citysearch Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Started with a phone screen that covered general coding and a recent project, conducted by a manager. Then there was an onsite interview with a software engineer, a release/architect manager, and a business-side project manager. This part focused on a recent project, discussed internet advertising experience, and included a design question/answer session, along with questions about ad auction, ad ranking, and pricing.

I was contacted by a recruiter from the company. She was very responsive and kept me updated. Then, two guys called me for a 30-minute chat. Near the end, they asked if I had questions. When I asked about the office size, they said 'four and a half'. I confirmed and they said it again. Later, the recruiter explained that the call had issues and I didn't seem very enthusiastic. My takeaways are: 1) Find out about your interviewers' roles from the recruiter beforehand. 2) Always be respectful. The interviewers were disrespectful to me, so I lost all respect for them. I'm okay with being told directly if I'm not a good fit or qualified, or if the interview needs to end early.

The interview process was pretty standard, nothing too in-depth. They asked a few small questions about data structures, some logical problems, and multiple-choice questions. It all took about an hour, and I received an offer letter the same evening.