I applied online and was contacted by HR a few weeks later. A phone screen was set up with two software engineering managers on the Battle.net team.

The phone interviewers were nice and easy to talk with. They asked me some questions about coding projects that I had worked on and about any bugs or difficulties that I encountered. I had an opportunity to ask some questions about their team environment.

At the end of the interview, I had to take a short online test (~10 minutes) which included some simple questions and also a half-page of "wrong" C++ code, and I was supposed to find some bugs.

After the phone interview, I was contacted by HR to discuss a salary range. No exact number was required; they just wanted to make sure we were in the same ballpark. A week later, they booked me flights and a hotel for an in-person interview.

The in-person interview consisted almost entirely of a full day of coding with two other candidates for the position. The three of us had to work together on a project, which simulated a real day at work. We were given some working code to start with, which made the project much easier than coding it from scratch. There were always some Battle.net team members in the room observing us and available to answer any questions.

By the end of the day, we had a working project with about 90% of the features done. Overall, I found the day of coding to be interesting and enjoyable. Everyone was nice. I even learned a few things.

After the day of coding and a restaurant dinner with some Battle.net team members, we were told to expect a verdict from HR within a week, and that we would be given some feedback on our performance so that we could "learn and grow," according to one of the company's policies.

After 10 days, I emailed HR to ask about the verdict. Shortly after that, I got a phone call from HR telling me that the Battle.net team had decided not to give me an offer because "my skills didn't match." After that, I also received a generic rejection email where the candidate feedback section contained the text "INSERT FEEDBACK HERE." I felt somewhat betrayed by the lack of useful "learn and grow" feedback that the engineers had promised to give.

However, the overall experience was still positive.

A completely open question with no context, such as "Who are you?"