Namely Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

So the interviews were actually pretty decent, even fun. But man, the communication was just awful. They hit me up for a third interview even though they said the first two would be it. Then it was weeks of just 'we're working on it' with hardly any updates. The person I was dealing with went on PTO, so I talked to different people from the hiring team, but it seemed like they barely talked to each other. When my original contact got back, they told me they'd offered the job to someone else based on experience. Then they asked if I was still available if that offer fell through by a certain date. A few days after that deadline, they told me the other person didn't accept, but they weren't offering me the job anyway because the other guy apparently showed them exactly what they needed. Seriously, why is this only discovered so late? And why couldn't they communicate clearly with each other or me? Different people involved, hardly any info shared, and they were missing deadlines themselves. The actual interviews were fine, enjoyable even. But the rest of it was super unprofessional and it felt like they kept changing their minds. If your interview process is still a work in progress, fine, but don't leave candidates hanging and be so uncommunicative that it messes up the whole hiring thing.

The algorithm part was mostly done, but I struggled a bit with populating an array. The interviewer stepped in and fixed it. The function worked fine with all test cases. However, he gave negative feedback to HR about my basic loop structure skills, which felt unfair. The system design interviewer, unfamiliar with IoT, asked a question about it. He seemed receptive to my ideas and didn't object, yet told HR my solution was vague. Honestly, he wasn't equipped for a technical interview. He could have just said there were better candidates, which would have been more straightforward.

Started with a recruiter call, then a code pairing session. The on-site was pretty intense, more rounds and people than usual. It had 2 coding challenges, a system design question that changed as we went, and some 1-on-1s for introductions and to check cultural and professional fit. Despite being a lot, the on-site let me really connect with the interviewers. The offer was okay compared to others, but I took it because I believe in the product and company, everyone was great and energetic, and I connected with some people professionally. The recruiter was key throughout and really made Namely stand out.