Spokeo Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The whole comms with them was rough: scheduling was tough, the recruiters weren't clear about what to expect, I barely had time to ask them questions, I never knew what I'd be working on or with, and they didn't follow through on getting back to me with feedback the day after the onsite, sending a generic rejection email a week later! I applied for a Senior Software Development role. A recruiter reached out asking if I'd be open to a mid-level position instead. I said that was fine and gave her some times I could talk. She took days to reply, and I had to follow up since I was scheduling other interviews. When she set it up, I asked what to expect, but got no reply. That first call was just her asking standard application questions like 'will you need relocation assistance?' or 'will you require sponsorship?', then a bunch of CS and web dev trivia (algorithm runtimes, data structure types, JavaScript closures, etc.) and my years of experience with various technologies. She also never sent me the job description for the mid-level role even after I asked multiple times. When they scheduled my 'tech screen', they sent a coderpad link, so I assumed coding would be involved. I asked to confirm but got no response. The developer interviewing me was almost 10 minutes late. He spent most of the hour asking more trivia questions. It was draining. They seemed to care more about what I knew than how I'd solve problems. Right after that call, I was told they wanted to move me to the 'onsite'. Neither call had any time for me to ask about the company or team! The onsite was scheduled, and I asked at least 3 times what I should discuss with each interviewer to prep. I didn't get an answer until the day before, and the recruiter gave me wrong, vague info: supposedly 'algorithms', 'coding', 'frontend', 'get to know you', plus 'technical' and 'hands-on'. She also asked for my resume the day before the onsite! Talking to the recruiter during the interview, I asked if any interviewers were the manager. She said no, it was a new team and the manager wasn't hired yet, but to ask the next person. That person told me they don't put new hires on brand new teams. So much confusion! My algorithm questions went well, and I felt a good connection with the interviewer. The frontend challenge was next (not what I was told, and I didn't know I'd have to build a whole frontend project, I thought it'd be general questions). I couldn't recall anything! After struggling with frontend for an hour, I moved to a coding challenge with a Developer. The challenge wasn't too hard, but I was rattled from the previous interview, and CodeSandbox was new to me. I didn't take enough time to read the requirements and plan. The code I wrote was messy and not great. Lastly, I spoke with a C-level exec for a non-technical chat. It was friendly, but he did ask some high-level tech questions (like how to fix a slow site or optimize code). I was pretty exhausted by then.

Applied online for a position after a friend recommended the company. Had a phone interview with two easy questions (tree traversal and another easy one) which I finished in 30 minutes. This led to an on-site interview. The drive was long (1.5 hours) and I was tired. The front desk was nice, gave me water. All interviewers were friendly. The first on-site round involved a simple coding problem in Ruby. I struggled because I'm a Java/Javascript developer and hadn't used Ruby in about 7 years. Also, I'm not used to Mac and had trouble with basic editing like copy-paste and vim, so I used a text editor. My advice is to practice Ruby beforehand as they really like it. The second round had 4 algorithm questions covering Tree, Graph, and String; I couldn't get a perfect solution for the last one. The final round was a system design question. I realized afterward it was the N-gram problem but I approached it incorrectly. The recruiters were very nice throughout the process and even gave me a gift.

After I applied, I got a call for a phone interview. It was about 15 minutes long and focused on front-end development. Then, they sent me a small project to complete. I got an extension on the deadline because I was busy with work, and after they reviewed my project, I was invited for an onsite interview. I spoke with two people from the front-end team, and it felt like they were checking if I could do the job and if I'd fit in with the team and company.