Sledgehammer Games Interview Questions
& Process

Applied directly and got a call from a recruiter within a couple days. This recruiter was super helpful throughout the whole thing. Everyone I talked to was nice and really knew their stuff. First, there was a 30-minute intro call with the recruiter, mostly general company chat. Then, a 30-minute screening with the hiring manager to discuss the role more, confirm my interest, and see if I was a good fit. After that, two 1-hour group interviews back-to-back, with a break in between. One group interview was about technical skills, the other about soft skills. Got a verbal offer shortly after the final interview, followed by the written offer a day or two later. The whole process took about a month from application to offer. They mentioned the time for the written offer can vary based on location and if you're remote or not. No art test was given. This was a senior level position.

What a joke, seriously don't even try. I applied way back in Jan 2016 and they only got back to me in April 2016. Everything took ages, like weeks between each step, they are super slow. First up, two phone interviews that were pretty standard, just asking why I wanted to work there and about my past. Then a coding challenge that was also standard but took forever, with 10 written questions, one medium coding problem and one hard one. Took way longer than other places. After that, a whiteboard coding challenge which was actually easy, working with others to fix something. I think they wanted to see how we'd work as a team and communicate, not really test technical skills. Finally, an interview panel where they threw a bunch of questions at me. Some were those generic Google-style ones, and weirdly, some people asking me questions seemed like HR and didn't really know what they were talking about, not the engineers. They offered me a job, but it was $20k-$40k less than I was already making. I knew from reviews they didn't pay well, but wow. Apparently, bonuses depend on game sales, and since they only ship games every few years, the bonuses aren't great. Obviously, I said no, because it's less than I'm earning now. I don't know how much people work there, but it seems like a lot of weekend work, and since it's salary, no overtime. So yeah, save yourself the trouble.

I applied and then had a phone chat with 2-3 folks before they asked me to do a design test, which I had a week to complete. After that, I went in for an onsite interview that took up half the day. It was a marathon of meeting five different groups of people. All the meetings were one-on-one, except when I met with the other level designers to discuss my design test. They expected me to talk about what I did well and what could be better, and how I'd fix things if something was removed. Later, I met a programmer who gave me a technical problem to solve on the whiteboard. I really struggled, but he knew the answer and helped guide me through it, which was a good experience even though it was tough. To wrap up the day, I had lunch and a more casual chat with someone I'd spoken with on the phone before. The recruiter gave me a full studio tour before I left. It was a great learning experience and I enjoyed meeting everyone, no matter the outcome.

I applied online for the Environment Artist job but they had an opening for recent grads like me, so the recruiter reached out via text. Scheduling was tough, we had to reschedule a bunch of times because the recruiter was always in meetings. I usually had to wait over an hour each time, but they were super friendly and gave me lots of info. After the phone chat, I got the art test. I submitted it, and then two weeks later, I found out I didn't get the gig.