InVision Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

I was contacted by a very friendly recruiter and we set up a meeting to chat over the phone. The chat was casual, and we discussed some job details and how the rest of the interview process would go. I was then sent a JavaScript programming exercise with no strict time limits, and was also promised payment upon completion which I thought was very different and extremely considerate. The programming exercise was a fairly challenging, modern implementation of the producer/consumer problem. It was about 4 days before I heard back, but my solution was good enough to allow me to move to the second interview with a few engineers and the director of engineering via Google Hangouts. For the first 40 minutes or so, we discussed the programming exercise and they prodded my knowledge on front-end and back-end development, but it wasn't 'firing squad' style, it was very relaxed and casual. I was then given time to ask questions and hear more about InVision. We ended the call with some talk about what everyone does for fun, and I was told I'd hear back from the recruiter soon. There was some delay in hearing back, I think it took a week or so, but eventually I was told I'd made it to the third and final interview with the CTO on Google Hangouts and we scheduled it for a week out. There was one rescheduling of the meeting, but it was only a couple more days out. The interview was less technical then with the engineers and was more focused on my software development principles, why I wanted to work for InVision, and learning more about the company at a high level. Overall, InVision definitely sets themselves apart in the way they interview engineers by valuing their time and providing clear expectations. It was definitely a positive experience.

I applied online in October 2018 and the whole thing took about two weeks. First, there was a 30-45 minute recruiter chat. Then, a 1-hour technical interview with another technical lead where we talked about my background and the job, plus I had to walk through building a basic SaaS service. That one ran long, 1.5 hours, because I had tons of questions about InVision. Next up were two back-to-back "behavioral" interviews with managers, each lasting an hour. The first one felt great, the second was just okay. They both asked about handling tough situations and past work problems. Finally, a 45-minute interview with a director of engineering, which was pretty similar to the manager chats and also felt just okay. The recruiter was really helpful and made everything smooth, always replying quickly about benefits and stuff. The two manager interviews back-to-back were a bit tiring because they asked similar questions and I gave similar answers twice over two hours. After five long interviews, and getting some hints that things were going well, I was expecting an offer or at least a chat about compensation and a role. Instead, I got a standard rejection email with no explanation. It was strange because around the end of my process, most engineering jobs vanished from their careers page, though they added new, more generic ones a few weeks later.

The interview process involved a phone screen, followed by technical questions/interviews, and then a final interview with a Director. It felt like the Director's opinion was the only one that mattered; if they didn't like you, the rest of the interview was basically pointless. The feedback I got afterward was terrible, really subjective, and just seemed like a way to justify the Director's decision.