As an engineer with 10 years of experience, I was drawn to Square because they boast about their interview process being less algo/DS/LeetCode-centric and more relevant to day-to-day work. With a decade on my CV, I thought I'd have a good venue to dive deep into my expertise and the value I've provided elsewhere, while demonstrating my ability to get real work done.

I applied online and received an automated response stating I was in the system. A confirmation email again boasted about their interview style, focusing on real-world scenarios. I was contacted by a "recruiter" a day later to respond with my availability for a phone screen. I provided my availability and received a Google Calendar invite with a Hangouts link and a CoderPad link. I never received any non-templated/generated email from a recruiter, nor did I have a chance to speak with the hiring manager prior to the screen to see if the role was even a possible good fit.

The tech screen involved two engineers. Both were nice, but they got right to business as soon as they joined, presenting a LeetCode-style medium-difficulty problem. I solved it with 20 minutes to spare, with a few hints from the interviewer. He layered on a second, more difficult problem. With no time to implement, we discussed a possible approach. There were the obligatory 5 minutes at the end for questions.

I received a generic rejection email the next day. I'm not convinced the recruiter was actually human; it was likely a recruiter bot.

This process would have saved three engineers across both companies an hour of their time if a fit was confirmed ahead of time, and/or if Square had been honest up-front about what to expect. I understand this is standard process for big tech in the Bay Area who need to weed through hundreds of inexperienced applicants for every requisition, but Square should cut the BS and be honest that they are part of the LeetCode grinder.

Traverse a 2D grid with some constraints and corner cases.