Hearst Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I had my first interview with the recruiter. The second round was completing a timed test on tech. It was a test because they were multiple choice questions that you had to complete. These were tricky but doable. The last part of the coding test was taking code already written and updating the code to fix tests. Do yourself a favor and complete it in your IDE. The testing tool is horrible and doesn't always work. I emailed the recruiter letting her know that I completed the exercise. I never heard back. No rejection - nothing. I was an employee referral and that is how they treat people who are referred to them. If this is how they treat people, image working for them. They will have no respect for you or your time! Do yourself a favor and don't waste your time with this company. I emailed the team and my referral telling them how unprofessional this was and that I would be taking my name out of the applicant pool. I rejected them!

So I interviewed with Hearst Autos. It started with a recruiter call, then a hiring manager call. After that, there was a take-home assignment, followed by a final round with 4 interviews. I was told I'd get feedback by the next day or early next week, but I never heard back even after reaching out twice. It's pretty unprofessional to ghost candidates, especially after they put in hours on the take-home and technical prep. The recruiter wasn't much help either on how to prep. The hiring manager said they cared more about general coding ability than specific languages, but then I got asked about HTML, CSS, and NodeJS details. The whole experience felt rude and abrasive.

It started with a phone interview, mostly to get a general idea of what you know and if you'd vibe with the team. Both coworkers and managers were there, so more people got a say and could compare notes. Then, there was an in-person technical interview where I had to write code on the whiteboard right then and there. They seemed really interested in how I approach problems, my thought process, what I do when I get stuck, and my creative problem-solving skills. The questions weren't super hard, but some were a bit random and not stuff you use every day.