Unified Software Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Applied online and got a response really fast, like within a day. First up was a phone screen with an engineer where we talked about building a Javascript/React/Vue component that fetches data from an external API. Then I had another phone screen, this time with the Director of Engineering for one of the projects at Unified. We mostly chatted about my work history and my career goals. They threw in a couple of technical questions, but the main focus was on my past experience and how I understand scrum. The final part was a remote video interview since I'm not in NYC (usually it's in-person on-site). I interviewed with the Director of Product, Director of Engineering, and two other engineers. Lots of technical questions about Javascript came up. They actually got back to me with an offer on the same day as this last interview.

I saw the job posting and reached out. After some emails back and forth, they set up a call with a manager, which went fine, then another with a senior engineer. He was a really great guy, and our 45-minute chat turned into a 90-minute casual conversation about programming and related concepts. I really liked talking with him. Next, I was given a coding challenge. It was a three-part Java exercise, pretty standard computer science stuff that felt a bit dated for a tech role in 2015/2016. I apparently did better than average, and the recruiter gave me good feedback. Then came a 30-minute "personality profile" quiz, which felt like SAT questions, like "Door is to Open as Hammer is to X" and image pattern completion. It made me question if I still wanted the job. Finally, the recruiter, who was consistently friendly and responsive, said it was just a meet-and-greet with the team. When I got there, it turned out to be another technical interview with four different people, including the senior engineer I'd spoken with earlier. I was rehashing things I'd already explained, defining basic concepts like unit testing, and even going over my resume basics. They even had me wait 10 minutes at one point while they figured out who was next. Because of the delays, the whole thing ran late, and I had to leave for another commitment. The entire experience was disorganized and reflected poorly on how they operate. I emailed the recruiter afterward to say I wasn't interested, but never heard back. It felt like interviewing at a big, bureaucratic company that had lost its agility and decision-making edge.

I went through a phone screen with Unified back in February. I had a chat with an engineer who had already reviewed my GitHub code and wanted to discuss it further. While I was explaining my projects, he was looking at the live versions and would ask more questions as they popped into his head. The questioning was quite in-depth, really digging into the 'whys' and 'hows' of my work.