I was contacted by a recruiter about 2 months after I submitted an online application. The recruiter and I worked out a time for a phone interview the following week. I was contacted the following week by 3 SW engineers/game developers. The interview started with a pretty standard phone screen.

There were some technical questions related to the job description, questions on what I did for work, and questions on why I wanted to work at Blizzard. The interviewers were straightforward, a bit quiet, but seemed to really love their job.

After the phone screen, I was given a take-home assignment to complete and turn in the following day. It was quite difficult (it was similar to a project one would encounter in an upper-division CS class) despite being told it would take a few hours. I correctly implemented the project and submitted it the next day.

After a few days, a technical recruiter contacted me. As others have said, the recruiter's main question and concern was over expected salary. The recruiter's tone of voice was that of a greasy, shady car salesman. After telling him a salary range typical of mid-level developers (even on the lower end), he made a passive-aggressive statement that I should do research on the average salary range of the Irvine area before coming up with a final answer. This is bizarre, since most Fortune 500 companies and other tech companies negotiate salary after acquiring talent due to having large resources and income to acquire employees.

I was contacted the next week, and the recruiter told me they wanted to fly me down for an interview since I did good in the interview and coding project. Immediately, the salary expectation was brought up as if this was another "test" I had to pass.

I told him a lower range for the base salary (low relative to what other mid-level SW engineers earn in the area), but this value did not seem good enough for him, and he appeared greatly annoyed. The tone of his voice immediately became more aggressive.

The recruiter tried to inform me the salary range was typical of what senior engineers would make (it's not for the OC area if you actually perform the research using Glassdoor and other related job websites) and tried to sell me on lowering my salary expectations since there was profit sharing, 401k matching, vacation, and tuition assistance, which are all really standard perks of most big Fortune 500 companies. I agreed to his suggestion of the lowered base salary range and thought I would negotiate later on.

The recruiter said they would love to fly me down, but I had a feeling that this salary quibble would play negatively against me. I was left in the dark for about 5 weeks until I finally received an email informing me I would not fly down for an interview.

The take-home lesson is if you really want to work for Blizzard, pass the technical interview AND give the salary range they expect, which seems to be lower relative to the other tech companies in the area. Be wary of shady, greasy recruiters trying to chastise you for expecting an average SW engineer salary. The demand for SW engineers is very high in OC, LA, and SD (not only the Silicon Valley), and such demand should be met with good pay for engineers.

The technical questions were directly related to the job description. The coding project is a bit random, but from my experience and reading other reviewers, it's usually relevant to the job position or what the engineers who interview you do.