Senior Staff Engineer applicants have rated the interview process at Affirm with 2.5 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty) and assessed their interview experience as 50% positive. To compare, the company-average is 58.5% positive. This is according to Glassdoor user ratings.
Candidates applying for Senior Staff Engineer roles take an average of 35 days to get hired, when considering 2 user submitted interviews for this role. To compare, the hiring process at Affirm overall takes an average of 26 days.
Common stages of the interview process at Affirm as a Senior Staff Engineer according to 2 Glassdoor interviews include:
Phone interview: 50%
Drug test: 25%
One on one interview: 25%
Here are the most commonly searched roles for interview reports -
I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Affirm
Interview
Phone screen round consisted of implementing a Card game with some rules defined. Logic was simple to implement. 2nd part of question consisted of making the game flexible. For eg: Variable number of cards and variable numbers of players instead of 2. It was already 4 pages of code with first part of question and no time left to implement extensions. It felt like a typing speed test instead of a programming exercise.
I focused on modularity, readability and class designs but looks like these were less relevant as compared to able to get to the 2nd part of the question.
It would have been a better strategy to directly go for the extension of the problem with bit less focus on clean programming style.
Also, it was strange to expect to account for a standard deck of card to extend beyond 52 cards. Either don't use 52 cards standard deck in the problem or mention that it is not a standard deck.
Interviewer was junior and asked to print the output while there were already methods returning the desired output. Interrupted many times to initialize things in other classes which were not part of the current code flow. I usually leave the initialization and wiring for the end.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Implement a card game war with 2 players and 52 cards.
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 5 weeks. I interviewed at Affirm (San Francisco, CA) in Feb 2020
Interview
I had a great experience during my interview process. A recruiter approached me, but at the time, I didn't think it was the right opportunity. The company offered to connect me with a manager who gave me insight into the company, the opportunities available, and answered a ton of questions.
The next step was a take-home assignment; it was Android-specific. The task itself was straightforward and comparable to those given by other companies.
After the assignment, they invited me for an onsite (pre-COVID-19 😢) interview. I interviewed with three engineers, a director, and the hiring manager, and the recruiter. I also had lunch with another manager.
They gave me a verbal yes the same day of the interview, and an official offer the week after. The entire process ~6 weeks, but I was also taking it slow.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- Design a server-driven UI experience for applying to a loan.