I had a fairly positive experience with the interview process, until the recruiter left a bad taste in the end by ghosting me. This happened after I spent over a month in preparation, including traveling across the world for four days.

I cannot believe how the recruiter could act like this. After being in touch for more than a month, they didn't have the courtesy or time to simply say yes or no. There was absolutely no response to the 10+ follow-up emails sent over three months, and I finally gave up. It became clear to me that I was no longer in contention for this job within a couple of weeks, but I was still hoping for some confirmation.

Singapore is a small country, and the tech industry is even smaller. I am interested to see how the recruiter will respond when our paths cross.

In terms of the interview process, there were three phases:

• Recruiter call
• Screening interview
• Onsite interview

The recruiter call was fairly straightforward, focusing on understanding the job profile and whether my role suited the need. The recruiter also asked a couple of algorithmic questions (Fibonacci, palindrome, etc.).

The screening interview was mostly on solving some algorithmic questions like string and array manipulations. I was happy that the interviewer didn't bother about the syntactical correctness of the program or whether it could be compiled or run. I had to do it twice because everything could not be covered in one hour.

After that, I was asked to come for an onsite interview in Menlo Park, with full expenses paid. I had to prepare more for this, as there were five rounds of interviews scheduled over two days. Three out of the five rounds had similar questions to the screening, which included whiteboard programming and system design. One round was about processes and managerial activities. The last one was with a senior VP, about what I liked to do, my strengths, and weaknesses.

Overall, I found the interview process to be fairly normal. As a Software Development Manager role is hands-on, it is understandable to expect me to go through programming and whiteboard problem-solving. Having said that, the standard of the interview was not overly difficult, except that the company could afford to invest more resources, allowing them to set up more interviews and potentially reject a not-so-excellent candidate.

Fibonacci for a large number

Array of string manipulations (Having an understanding of sorting, Big O, and trees would help)

Localization of a website - System design