I didn't have a lot of experience working with Android, but some and was interested in the Zappos interview process since I had heard so much about it. I'm currently employed so it was no stress to interview and see where it went. I guess I'm kind of a serial interviewee because I enjoy interviewing for different jobs. I've turned down a lot because I wasn't necessarily interested in actually working there but wanted to improve on interviewing.
Here's how it went for me:
1. Applied online
2. Got an email from a Tech HR Recruiter (like most of the big silicon valley companies they use contract tech recruiters).
3. Had a phone interview with the recruiter setup.
4. Did a personality or as Zappos calls it culture interview to see if I was a good culture fit. Passed with flying colors.
5. About a day later spoke to an assistant who wanted to setup a technical interview with the team on the phone the next day.
6. Did the technical interview with the team on the phone. I let them know at that time that I wasn't an expert at java or android, but that I had done some development in it.
- They asked all of the typical questions, Polymorphism, Encapsulation, Big O Notation, etc. etc.
- Also asked Android specific questions, Activites, Intents, Data objects, Concepts, Layout, 9-patch etc.
7. I felt that the interview went ok, but that they could clearly see I was willing to learn but not an expert.
8. I didn't hear anything for 5 days and then I got an email indicating they were going to do some more interviews over the next couple of weeks and then get back to me. Which made me think hmm why not just tell me I wasn't experienced enough in Android and Java at that point? I reflected on it but it wasn't a big deal because it's just something that I added to the experience. Each interview process is unique in it's own ways.
9. So 2 weeks later exactly I got another email stating they wanted me to do a coding challenge. I won't spoil it for people still in the interview process. Its a pretty straight forward code challenge.
10. You have 2 hours to complete the coding challenge, the end result being an actual app.
11. I used existing code and modified it. Meh could have definitely done better if I had actually stayed up to date with android and the changing API. I did more when it was 1.5 1.6 and G1 days.
12. 2 weeks pass and I get another email that the team has reviewed my submission and they would like to have a coding review call the next week.
13. Week passes and then the coding review call occurs. Asking questions about issues I had, areas of code they were curious about, why some methods were public and not private, why I didn't use ProGuard never used the tool but now I know :). Overall I got the impression that yes, what I had submitted in the 2 hour timeframe really wasn't that impressive.
14. Still looks like the job is posted on their site, so dunno if they have hired someone yet.
Overall I really enjoyed the zappos interview process, at least as far as I got :). Definitely a fun process and nice people throughout!