Thoughtworks interview questions

First, you speak with their recruiter, who feels you out to see if you're possibly a good fit for the company. This is nothing terribly deep, just a conversation to see what your goals are, get a sense of your personality, etc. Assuming the recruiter thinks you're a potential fit, you will get a code test. You are given several word problems, and you must pick one of them to solve. You're expected to deliver a working solution, complete with tests, within a couple of days. Your code is graded by a couple of their consultants, and if they like what they see they promote you to the next level. Then comes the phone screen interview. The consultant who interviewed me asked a lot of technical questions, going pretty deep into software development concepts and specific technologies. It lasted about an hour, and he also gave me an opportunity to question him on anything company or work-related. If you make it this far, you then have an in-person interview. You go to one of their offices and meet and speak with a few people. You are given several personality and intelligence tests as well. This is an all-day experience. When you visit their office, you are smacked in the face (in a good way) with their corporate culture. Everyone just looked incredibly happy to be there, and it's a very flat hierarchy, to the point that the people with whom I interviewed had no idea to whom they reported. Another level of interviewing is their Super Saturday. They fly a group of candidates into one of their offices, where candidates and current team members interact largely in group settings. There are group discussions, and group activities (an Agile project using Legos comes to mind). After that, if you are someone they are interested in, you will speak with their market principal for that office and try to come to a deal. The whole process opened my mind to a new and better way of vetting candidates. They are, per their own words "slow to hire, slow to fire." If you interview there, there is no way you have no idea what you're getting into if you decide to join the team.

For the most part, the interview process was like most other companies, but with a lot more testing. An initial email with a screener to make sure you are really interested in 80% travel, tell you a little about expectations, and to set up first phone interview. A phone interview with a team member to check your personality and skills. This person will stay with you throughout the process. A tech phone interview with a lead developer to check your personality and skills. A coding exercise which you have 3 days to deliver. You pick from 3 exercises, and must include testing and auto-build. Someone reviews your code, and then you receive a date for the onsite interview. An online personality test that you take prior to your onsite interview. They send this to you after your onsite interview is scheduled and you must complete prior to the onsite interview. The onsite interview consists of more tests. You sit with another developer to go over your coding exercise, and you have 1:1 interviews. The last step for me was a call from the Recruiter saying the position I fit into has a salary range well below my current salary. Since I am not willing to take less than my current salary, this ended my interview process. Prior to applying, be sure you are really interested in 80% travel. I was asked this in every interview. I was told that in some situations the travel is 100%. Make sure you read their website many times from beginning to end. You will get asked questions about what you found on the website. Also, make sure you are well rested prior to your onsite interview. During one of my interviews, I was asked if I knew that ThoughtWorks was against the US Military and did not support our troops. In my research of ThoughtWorks, I came across one mention of this. Prior to your interviews, read their blogs. You are given the names of your interviewers prior to the interview. Mention something about what you read. They will respond happily to you and it helps ease the tension. For all interview situations, make sure you ask questions when they ask you if you have any questions.