A recruiter reached out to me and immediately set up a phone interview with a Senior Software Engineer. He mostly asked questions about my experience and dove into some technical details, focusing on core Java and REST services. The phone interview went well, so one day later, I received an invitation for an on-site interview.

The on-site interview consisted of a two-hour session. The first hour was a technical written test. I was given four exercises and had to come up with solutions for at least two. I was asked to write code on paper, which, to be honest, is actually pretty fun. I was, of course, told beforehand that they wouldn't expect me to be correct and precise with code syntax like I would be using a real IDE, such as IntelliJ or Eclipse. If you know how to write code and are used to Java puzzles, it's impossible to not be able to come up with a solution to at least one of the questions.

The last hour consisted of a chat via WebEx with two of the hiring managers based in the JP Morgan US office. They are really smart guys and knew their stuff. The interview started with about 10-15 minutes of chatting about past and current projects, my experience, etc., and then moved on to more technical questions. The technical questions were really challenging but none of them were out of the ordinary. It was more about software architecture within a given context, like the pros and cons between Hibernate vs. MyBatis, or the pros and cons regarding a Microservice or a Monolith approach, Spring Boot vs. MVC, and their differences.

Overall, it was one of the most enjoyable interviews I've ever had, and I was really happy when I was told that they would like to make me an offer. The package they offered was above my expectations, but unfortunately, after a lot of thinking, I had to decline and go with another company. The reason being: I was actually offered less money by the other company I've accepted their offer (and it is quite a significant amount when I say less), but the technology stack and, above all, the promise of landing a Senior Software Engineer role shortly after I join them made the difference. If it turns out I made the wrong choice (hopefully not), I will definitely try again with JP Morgan; it is definitely worth it.

Rest, ORM, Hibernate, MyBatis, JPA, Spring framework (Spring Boot and MVC), General questions.