Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California
February 1, 2012
Negative ExperienceNo Offer
Process
The first call with the HR rep was very simple and short. The rep seemed to be distracted and didn't really care about my background or who I was. I was instantly shot on to the next phase of interviewing with an engineer who asked me technical questions off of a form. The engineer was very cold and had no interest in the candidate and didn't even ask about my experience or background. The whole process was poorly organized and impersonal.
Questions
Describe an OO design for a deck of cards.
Write a script that will pull the IP addresses out of a random text file. Do this in the language that you are most comfortable in.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 59 interview experiences for the Block Software Engineer role in San Francisco, California.
Success Rate
25%
Pass Rate
Block's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in San Francisco, California is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive56%
Neutral20%
Negative24%
Candidates reported having very good feelings for Block's Software Engineer interview process in San Francisco, California.
Block Work Experiences
4.0
Good but overrated
Software Engineer • Former Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
January 14, 2017
Pros: As a developer specifically, [they have a] great engineering culture. They actually care about things like testing their code, which many startups only give lip service to.
Still has a startup-like atmosphere for a pretty old company.
Some nice fringe benefits: health/dental/vision 100% covered, lots of cheap-to-free food.
Cons: Low salaries for a public company. Equity compensation for me was equal to about 1 year's salary but vesting over 4 years. Even including the 25% premium, it’s still low for the SF Bay Area.
Required engineers to be on-call, at least on my team, but did not properly compensate. I have never worked anywhere that required engineers to be on-call unless it was shortly after a launch. Maybe they would be expected to fix their code if it failed catastrophically, but not like this.
Has only half a CEO.
In an extremely low-margin, competitive business with no solid plan for turning a profit. It’s the worst-kept secret of both Square and Twitter. Everyone seems to know it except him and the respective boards. Jack needs to try with one, or he will fail with both in my opinion.
4.0
Nice people, good products, but confused leadership
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
January 5, 2022
Pros: People are always very nice, friendly, and helpful. As an engineer, I have a great work-life balance.
When it comes to delivering on new features, Square's tooling is a bit esoteric but usually gets the job done with minimal waiting. When it doesn't, the nice, friendly, and helpful people I just mentioned will unblock you really fast.
Cons: C-Suite leadership makes bizarre decisions (e.g., renaming to Block) that somehow promise to make *them* a lot of money, but don't contribute towards better products for users (e.g., Jack's obsession with crypto).
There's a mixture of new and pleasant technology, and old legacy stuff that has to continue to be supported. This would not be so bad, except there is a surprising amount of resistance if you decide not to build *new* things with the old legacy technology.
"Software architecture" isn't a priority for Block's microservices. So, while everything works and individual services have unit tests, creating usable APIs for cross-team boundaries is usually an afterthought that makes it a pain to ever make new connections.
4.0
Great work-life balance
Software Engineer • Former Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
February 18, 2024
Pros: Great work-life balance and friendly coworkers.
Cons: But the company is currently experiencing some thrashing at the leadership level, with changes in org structure.
- 4.0Good but overratedSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesJanuary 14, 2017Pros: As a developer specifically, [they have a] great engineering culture. They actually care about things like testing their code, which many startups only give lip service to. Still has a startup-like atmosphere for a pretty old company. Some nice fringe benefits: health/dental/vision 100% covered, lots of cheap-to-free food.Cons: Low salaries for a public company. Equity compensation for me was equal to about 1 year's salary but vesting over 4 years. Even including the 25% premium, it’s still low for the SF Bay Area. Required engineers to be on-call, at least on my team, but did not properly compensate. I have never worked anywhere that required engineers to be on-call unless it was shortly after a launch. Maybe they would be expected to fix their code if it failed catastrophically, but not like this. Has only half a CEO. In an extremely low-margin, competitive business with no solid plan for turning a profit. It’s the worst-kept secret of both Square and Twitter. Everyone seems to know it except him and the respective boards. Jack needs to try with one, or he will fail with both in my opinion.
- 4.0Nice people, good products, but confused leadershipSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesJanuary 5, 2022Pros: People are always very nice, friendly, and helpful. As an engineer, I have a great work-life balance. When it comes to delivering on new features, Square's tooling is a bit esoteric but usually gets the job done with minimal waiting. When it doesn't, the nice, friendly, and helpful people I just mentioned will unblock you really fast.Cons: C-Suite leadership makes bizarre decisions (e.g., renaming to Block) that somehow promise to make *them* a lot of money, but don't contribute towards better products for users (e.g., Jack's obsession with crypto). There's a mixture of new and pleasant technology, and old legacy stuff that has to continue to be supported. This would not be so bad, except there is a surprising amount of resistance if you decide not to build *new* things with the old legacy technology. "Software architecture" isn't a priority for Block's microservices. So, while everything works and individual services have unit tests, creating usable APIs for cross-team boundaries is usually an afterthought that makes it a pain to ever make new connections.
- 4.0Great work-life balanceSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeSan Francisco, California, United StatesFebruary 18, 2024Pros: Great work-life balance and friendly coworkers.Cons: But the company is currently experiencing some thrashing at the leadership level, with changes in org structure.
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