Block

Software Engineer Interview Experience - San Francisco, California

October 1, 2018

Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

Phone screen followed by another phone screen. If you pass the first one, they will have another one if you are not in the SF area. I had two phone screens, both went well, but these guys not even follow up with your feedback. Square should definitely work on training their recruiters for providing feedback even if they don't like the candidate.

Questions

Dynamic programming.

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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

Solid place to work

Software Engineer • Former Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: Fully remote with option to travel.

Cons: Upper management can be annoying.

Solid place to work

Software Engineer • Former Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: Fully remote with option to travel.

Cons: Upper management can be annoying.

Block, a mixture of good and bad

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: Good work-life balance. Good culture of being kind and helpful to each other.

Cons: A lot of weak direction from management. Two rounds of layoffs since I joined, and most likely more to come.

Block, a mixture of good and bad

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: Good work-life balance. Good culture of being kind and helpful to each other.

Cons: A lot of weak direction from management. Two rounds of layoffs since I joined, and most likely more to come.

Good first job

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: My coworkers are great. I really enjoy working with my team, and we get along very well. Both my manager and his manager were previous engineering leads who worked up to senior positions, which I really like.

Cons: Documentation is not the best, and there's a lot of "tribal knowledge." Some growing pains are due to recent expansions. For example, a lot of tools that worked while we were smaller aren't working so well now (though this is a work in progress to build new ones).

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: My coworkers are great. I really enjoy working with my team, and we get along very well. Both my manager and his manager were previous engineering leads who worked up to senior positions, which I really like.

Cons: Documentation is not the best, and there's a lot of "tribal knowledge." Some growing pains are due to recent expansions. For example, a lot of tools that worked while we were smaller aren't working so well now (though this is a work in progress to build new ones).

Solid place to work

Software Engineer • Former Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: Fully remote with option to travel.

Cons: Upper management can be annoying.

4.0
Solid place to work
Software Engineer • Former Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
May 17, 2024
Pros: Fully remote with option to travel.
Cons: Upper management can be annoying.

Block, a mixture of good and bad

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: Good work-life balance. Good culture of being kind and helpful to each other.

Cons: A lot of weak direction from management. Two rounds of layoffs since I joined, and most likely more to come.

4.0
Block, a mixture of good and bad
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
April 19, 2025
Pros: Good work-life balance. Good culture of being kind and helpful to each other.
Cons: A lot of weak direction from management. Two rounds of layoffs since I joined, and most likely more to come.

Good first job

Software Engineer • Current Employee

San Francisco, California, United States

Pros: My coworkers are great. I really enjoy working with my team, and we get along very well. Both my manager and his manager were previous engineering leads who worked up to senior positions, which I really like.

Cons: Documentation is not the best, and there's a lot of "tribal knowledge." Some growing pains are due to recent expansions. For example, a lot of tools that worked while we were smaller aren't working so well now (though this is a work in progress to build new ones).

4.0
Good first job
Software Engineer • Current Employee
San Francisco, California, United States
August 8, 2016
Pros: My coworkers are great. I really enjoy working with my team, and we get along very well. Both my manager and his manager were previous engineering leads who worked up to senior positions, which I really like.
Cons: Documentation is not the best, and there's a lot of "tribal knowledge." Some growing pains are due to recent expansions. For example, a lot of tools that worked while we were smaller aren't working so well now (though this is a work in progress to build new ones).

Block Interview Questions

Rotating the Box

Simulate a box tilting to the right, causing stones to fall until they hit obstacles or the floor. Re-arrange the characters in a given grid to reflect the resulting state of the box.

ArraysStringsTwo Pointers

Available Captures for Rook

On a chessboard, find how many pawns a rook can capture in one move. The rook can move horizontally or vertically until it hits an obstacle or the edge of the board.

Count Nice Pairs in an Array

You're given an array of numbers. Find how many pairs of numbers in the array satisfy a specific 'nice' property determined by reversing their digits and comparing them.

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