Groupon

Software Engineer Interview Experience - Palo Alto, California

January 1, 2016

Positive ExperienceGot Offer

Process

I had one on-campus interview through the university and one on-site. The interview process was really fast, taking only two weeks from the on-campus interview to the offer letter. The on-site interview included three technical interviews and one lunch interview. There were a surprising amount of behavioral questions. Other than that, the interview process was really easy.

Questions

Signed an NDA.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 7 interview experiences for the Groupon Software Engineer role in Palo Alto, California.

Success Rate

43%

Pass Rate

Groupon's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Palo Alto, California is fairly selective, failing a large portion of engineers who go through it.

Experience Rating

Positive57%

Neutral14%

Negative29%

Candidates reported having very good feelings for Groupon's Software Engineer interview process in Palo Alto, California.

Groupon Work Experiences

Growth With Shifting Management

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Lots of opportunity to learn and grow.

Cons: Senior management decisions are changing frequently and lack focus.

Growth With Shifting Management

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Lots of opportunity to learn and grow.

Cons: Senior management decisions are changing frequently and lack focus.

A dynamic company with many moving parts

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

November 28, 2014

Pros: Good working environment, training budget, meals, good benefits & career progression. Relaxed dress code. People are quite helpful.

Cons: Managers seem to be under a lot of pressure, leading to bad requirements, lots of back and forth, and bug reports. There's a lack of focus on tooling, which leads to slower iterative cycles.

A dynamic company with many moving parts

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

November 28, 2014

Pros: Good working environment, training budget, meals, good benefits & career progression. Relaxed dress code. People are quite helpful.

Cons: Managers seem to be under a lot of pressure, leading to bad requirements, lots of back and forth, and bug reports. There's a lack of focus on tooling, which leads to slower iterative cycles.

Full of chaos and politics

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Unlimited PTO makes you get more vacations if your manager is nice. Get your hands dirty early and try many state-of-the-art technologies. Most of the colleagues are nice.

Cons: Absolutely disorganized. Priorities keep changing because management needs to shift focus (short-term). Profit is the only concern, and it leads to much chaos and politics. Some managers tend to micromanage and disrespect people. As a result, the turnover rate is very high.

Full of chaos and politics

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Unlimited PTO makes you get more vacations if your manager is nice. Get your hands dirty early and try many state-of-the-art technologies. Most of the colleagues are nice.

Cons: Absolutely disorganized. Priorities keep changing because management needs to shift focus (short-term). Profit is the only concern, and it leads to much chaos and politics. Some managers tend to micromanage and disrespect people. As a result, the turnover rate is very high.

Growth With Shifting Management

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Lots of opportunity to learn and grow.

Cons: Senior management decisions are changing frequently and lack focus.

3.0
Growth With Shifting Management
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
May 13, 2013
Pros: Lots of opportunity to learn and grow.
Cons: Senior management decisions are changing frequently and lack focus.

A dynamic company with many moving parts

Software Engineer • Current Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

November 28, 2014

Pros: Good working environment, training budget, meals, good benefits & career progression. Relaxed dress code. People are quite helpful.

Cons: Managers seem to be under a lot of pressure, leading to bad requirements, lots of back and forth, and bug reports. There's a lack of focus on tooling, which leads to slower iterative cycles.

4.0
A dynamic company with many moving parts
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
November 28, 2014
Pros: Good working environment, training budget, meals, good benefits & career progression. Relaxed dress code. People are quite helpful.
Cons: Managers seem to be under a lot of pressure, leading to bad requirements, lots of back and forth, and bug reports. There's a lack of focus on tooling, which leads to slower iterative cycles.

Full of chaos and politics

Software Engineer • Former Employee

Palo Alto, California, United States

Pros: Unlimited PTO makes you get more vacations if your manager is nice. Get your hands dirty early and try many state-of-the-art technologies. Most of the colleagues are nice.

Cons: Absolutely disorganized. Priorities keep changing because management needs to shift focus (short-term). Profit is the only concern, and it leads to much chaos and politics. Some managers tend to micromanage and disrespect people. As a result, the turnover rate is very high.

2.0
Full of chaos and politics
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Palo Alto, California, United States
April 25, 2015
Pros: Unlimited PTO makes you get more vacations if your manager is nice. Get your hands dirty early and try many state-of-the-art technologies. Most of the colleagues are nice.
Cons: Absolutely disorganized. Priorities keep changing because management needs to shift focus (short-term). Profit is the only concern, and it leads to much chaos and politics. Some managers tend to micromanage and disrespect people. As a result, the turnover rate is very high.

Groupon Interview Questions

Sell Diminishing-Valued Colored Balls

You are given an inventory of colored balls, each with a value equal to its count. Determine the maximum total value you can obtain by selling a limited number of these balls, given that each sale reduces the ball's value by one.

ArraysBinary SearchGreedy Algorithms

Find the Winner of the Circular Game

Imagine people in a circle, eliminating every kth person. Determine who is the last person remaining after this process.

ArraysRecursionDynamic Programming

Insert Delete GetRandom O(1)

Design a data structure that supports insertion, deletion, and random element retrieval, all in constant time on average. You'll need to handle edge cases carefully to achieve O(1) complexity.

ArraysArraysDynamic Programming

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