I applied online, then spoke to the internal recruiter on the phone to go over the job specification and salary expectations. They provided a coding test to be returned within a week.

Following that, I was invited to the office (nb. the office is absolutely amazing) for a 3-hour face-to-face interview.

First round was going over the code with two developers. They didn't seem particularly well-prepared for the conversation, as the questions were pretty random and much about picking up holes.

Second round was a chat with a product owner, probably the nicest person I've met there. The discussion was about project management, dealing with product requirements, and so on.

Third round was with another two developers. It was part technical, part questions around my CV. They asked detailed questions about projects from 5 years ago, which I found surprising.

The final round was with the director of engineering. It was a general chat about career plans, getting an overview of the business, and so on. Before leaving for the day, I was told, "We will not let you hang on for long."

... that wasn't quite the case. Two weeks later, I emailed the recruiter about feedback, with no response. Another week later, I got an email from another recruiter, who advised that her colleague had left the business and she had taken over. She asked if I was available for an interview the following week, to which I replied that I had already been interviewed by 6 people and asked how many more interviews I needed. She went back to seek feedback from the interviewers (I had to supply the names, as it seems they don't track it on their end) and I haven't heard back for the next few days. Upon a couple of nudges, I eventually got on the phone with the recruiter, who said that the company had decided not to progress further. Frankly, I don't mind, but making people wait and wait and wait is not exactly a token of respect.

Overall, some of the developers appeared as though they had never interviewed anyone before and didn't quite know what to do. The recruiters were pretty unprofessional; they had a proper mess in the process, and this reflects badly on the company. Several of my colleagues have had similar experiences while interviewing with King, so it's clearly not an one-off.

Various questions around the solution to the exercise.