The interview process began with a 30-minute phone interview with the Hiring Manager, followed by a 4-hour onsite interview.

Square used to be a commanding brand and a great opportunity for anyone in the tech industry. When I met a few folks on the team, however, it wasn't very apparent that they were excited about the problems they were trying to solve. Aside from a couple of modules on programming and architecture, time with the Square team felt rushed, and it didn't seem like they were genuinely excited to hire new talent. Instead, the interviews were conducted in a very clinical way, with no interesting questions coming from the Square team.

On top of that, the whole-day interview at HQ was without lunch or a break session whatsoever. Typically, this wouldn't be an important red flag, but to cap it off, the recruiting team closed the conversation with, "People who join the Square team believe strongly in the mission and will take a pay cut for that mission."

a. Be prepared to code onsite any problems that appear on Cracking the Coding Interview (McDowell, 5th edition).

b. Be prepared to whiteboard architecture for any generic service.