Gracenote Interview Questions
& Process

I had a take-home app development project to check my problem solving abilities, code quality, attention to detail, ux sensibility, and documentation abilities. Then, there was a panel interview where we discussed the take-home project and the technical/design decisions I made. They also asked some technical algo questions and about my past professional experience.

I applied and about two weeks later, I had a phone screening and then the first interview. I was told I'd hear back within two weeks, but after that time passed, I got invited for a second interview with the manager. He mentioned it was down to me and one other person. This was on a Tuesday, and I was told I'd get feedback by the end of the week. But by the next Tuesday, I still hadn't heard anything, so I followed up. Finally, a day later, the recruiter sent a generic email with spelling mistakes, which didn't even explain why I wasn't chosen.

This hiring process was ridiculous, way too time-consuming for an entry-level role with below-average pay. It started with a HireVue video interview where I answered questions on camera. Then came a 200+ question test that took an hour. Finally, I had a meeting with the hiring manager. The first two steps alone took over three weeks because the company is so slow. After my interview, the hiring manager said they'd let me know about the job in about two weeks. That's over a month for the whole process, and I still don't know if I got the job. It's 2021, there's no reason for it to take this long to hear back. It really felt like a waste of time.

So I had this phone screen with HR first, basic stuff mostly, you know, behavioral and asking what I knew about the company. I guess I laid it on a little thick with the compliments, but hey, it got me to the next step. About two weeks later, I talked to the team manager, virtually. He seemed nice and all, super professional, but his questions were almost all behavioral, which made me wonder if he was even technical. He just went through my resume and I talked about each thing. Then he gave me a take-home assignment to build a full-stack app, due before the onsite. A week after that, I went to the office (this was pre-covid, mind you) and the team looked at my code. They also gave me a coding interview, medium difficulty, solvable with a greedy approach in O(n). The team was really helpful, talking through how to approach it and what algorithms to use. I figured it out pretty fast. Then about a week later, HR called with the offer.