I applied via LinkedIn. I had my first and only interview at the Square office since I am local to the Bay Area. Everyone was nice during my interview.

I arrived at Square for my one-hour interview. I signed an NDA, so I can't tell you the questions. I can tell you that they do not do brainteaser interviews like other tech companies do. Instead, they ask you a reasonable question that you could actually end up implementing in the real world. They tell you that you can use any resources you would like, such as Google and debugging.

During my one-hour interview, I only received positive signals from my interviewer. My code passed all tests. He kept saying that what I was doing was right. So I was shocked when I received a rejection note the next day.

I asked my recruiter for feedback, and he was nice enough to respond.

Here is the feedback and what I learned from that feedback:

• Feedback: You relied too heavily on the Eclipse autocorrect without taking the time to understand the bug.

  • I agree that I relied on the Eclipse autocorrect. I would suggest taking the time to understand the bug instead of just letting it autocorrect.

• Feedback: You copied and pasted code without understanding how to use it first.

  • I agree with this feedback too. I would suggest understanding the code in the browser and taking the time to type it out instead of doing what I would do during my regular job, which is grabbing the code and then modifying it in the IDE to suit the purpose I need it for.

• Feedback: You struggled with debugging.

  • I do not agree with this feedback and find it slightly embarrassing that this is on my file, but what is meant for me is meant for me. During the interview, I had a bug in my code. The interviewer asked if I would like to debug it. I said sure. I was about to debug it but then realized what my bug was and, instead of debugging, I just corrected it. It ran perfectly. I did not know that he was trying to test my debugging skills and wanted me to continue debugging.

Okay. So there is a common theme here. Square, or at least this interviewer, would prefer that you take your time instead of hurrying up. Most companies want speed; Square seems to want you to take the time to get it right the first time. If you look something up on the internet, even though copy-pasting is faster, I would say take the time to type it out. Know that they want to test your debugging skills.

During my future interviews at other companies, I am going to ask the interviewer at the end of the interview if they have any concerns about my abilities so that I can address them.

I signed an NDA.