I interviewed at Square Root (Austin, TX) in Feb 2012
Interview
There were three phases to the interview process. The first was a very informal meeting in a group setting. The second was a series of interviews with key people in the company and on the team. The third was a fairly real world weekend assignment--open ended, yet a good indicator of what kind of work to expect, both from me and from Oceanus.
Throughout the process I continued to develop a good sense of the company's positive, engaging, and collaborative atmosphere and how I might fit in with it. The interviews were conversational, yet focused. Overall, I came out of the process with a great impression of the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
The most difficult question was the one I liked the most--a customized weekend homework assignment. I wish this was a more common practice, when applicable. Told not to spend too much time on it, it was intended to be a quick barometer of how my experience translated into their environment beyond interview questions. From my perspective it also helped assure me that my own experience translated as well.
Glassdoor users rated their interview experience at Square Root as 60% positive with a difficulty rating score of 3.44 out of 5 (where 5 is the highest level of difficulty). Candidates interviewing for Office Manager and Data Engineer rated their interviews as the hardest, whereas interviews for Administrative Assistant and Intern roles were rated as the easiest.
The hiring process at Square Root takes an average of 16 days when considering 10 user submitted interviews across all job titles. To compare, the average duration of hiring at similar companies like BlackRock, Inc. is 14 days, Fabricated Software, Inc. is 2 days, and Apple Inc. is 21 days. Candidates applying for Copy Editor had the quickest hiring process (on average 1 day), whereas Data Engineer roles had the slowest hiring process (on average 30 days).
