GuildQuality Interview Questions
& Process

The interview process was pretty laid back and informal, like you'd expect from a tech company. Everyone I met seemed like someone I'd hang out with. While many companies focus on software design theory, architecture, OOP, and design patterns, GuildQuality was more focused on building a specific application using specific languages and markup. They gave a 3-hour timed take-home assignment. I don't think this is the best way to find good talent. It's a bad approach because you either submit code that works but you wouldn't want your name on, or you spend time writing quality code that doesn't get finished in time. If they're looking for people who don't care about quality and just want to get things working, then that's one way to filter. I met the CEO, Geoff, and we've kept in touch. He's down-to-earth and focused on making GuildQuality a big name in Atlanta's tech scene. Overall, I don't think GuildQuality would have been a good fit for me at the time. It has potential though. I think someone fresh out of college with a year or two of experience, willing to do a timed 3-hour application, would be exactly what they're looking for.

Had 3 phone interviews over Google Hangouts, speaking with senior engineers and the CEO. Then, I was flown out for an in-person interview. I was given a mini-project (about 3 hours) with specs and requirements to complete in the office, without supervision, to show my development skills and how I handle pressure. At the end of the 3 hours, I presented the mini-project and did a code review with the engineering team.

The interview process was quite long. First, I got a contact from a recruiter who asked me to answer some questions, probably to check my writing skills. Then, the next week, I had a phone call with the recruiter. She told me about the job, asked about my salary expectations, and said they could match it. The weekend after, I had a phone interview with the manager of the team. She was really nice but asked a lot of personal questions, like my age, which was weird. At the end of that call, she asked me to do an Excel test and a writing test. The Excel part was easy, and the writing sample could be about anything. After I sent those in, the recruiter contacted me the following week about an in-person interview. When I arrived, the recruiter led me to a conference room and I waited for a bit. The first person I met was the manager I'd spoken to before. Right away, she mentioned the compensation, saying it was 25-30k, depending on how much they wanted me. Apparently, this should have been discussed by the recruiter earlier, but it turned out the recruiter had only been there for two weeks. I then spoke with two other people. One said his opinion didn't matter and told me to ask him questions. The other asked what I did in high school and who I follow on Twitter. Finally, I met someone who was currently doing the job, and they were very pleasant. About a week later, the recruiter messaged me saying they would discuss everything and get back to me soon, but I never heard from them. Honestly, once I heard the very low salary offer at the start, I wasn't very interested anymore.

It was a phone call interview. The person interviewing me was really nice and helped me relax. They asked basic questions, like how my work from home schedule would function. It was basically to see if I'd be a good fit for the company.