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Senior Software Engineer Interview Experience - Ukraine

October 1, 2023
Negative ExperienceNo Offer

Process

I was interviewed by Remitly through the outsourcing company, by people from Remitly. Overall the process looked like this: Phone screening; Video call with recruiter; Then they gave me a link to the test, where I needed to answer a few technical questions. Overall it takes 1 hour. No pauses, retakes and stuff like this.

After I passed the test they scheduled the technical interview for 1.5 hours, which should have been the last step; Before the technical interview, the communication with the recruiter was great. Friendly, to the point, and up to date.

The only problem was a HUGE delay from the Remitly in order to schedule next steps after I passed the test: First I waited 1 week because of the holidays and Remitly's employee had, and no one could replace him; Then 2 weeks more they could not organise the call.

It was a time when Israel started the armed conflict. But why exactly they could not have a call they did not tell. I am located in Ukraine right now, so I think I can relate somehow to the situation.

But 3 weeks with no specific reason for waiting, while everyone else (even some companies in Israel) was working, it is not understandable for me. Then they finally scheduled a technical call.

There were 3 people. 1 backend developer (I was waiting for him 3 weeks to make this call), 1 team lead, 1 recruiter. The backend developer was absolutely not prepared for a call.

He could not say a few words about the project and company, he said even less than was in the job description and the recruiter (non-technical) was able to provide more technical insides about the project than he was.

The team lead was just muted at that point and did not add any info. The conversation itself was super rookie, with big awkward pauses from their side, and inconsistency in the information they provided.

I was not asked about my experience at all. It was like 10 words from the job description I had 3 weeks ago and then "Okay, let's code now", literally. For 30-40 minutes we were coding, solving some LeetCode style tasks.

It was okay, but I got the feeling that the interviewer was struggling with English. Sometimes it was hard to understand him. My English is far from perfect either, I just compare it to my previous experience.

Then I was asked 1 simple question, I could not answer it properly, I was nervous because the conversation for 50 minutes was not smooth at all, and could not come up with a clear answer. I communicated about it.

The next thing that happened was they wrapped up the interview (we had 40 minutes more of booked time). I asked if they had any concerns, or what went wrong.

They almost laughed in my face (the developer from the Remitly was literally covering his face with his arm). Then they said that everything was okay and that the recruiter would be back with the feedback.

I tried to ask again some questions. They did not want to answer them. And the feedback was that they got a feeling I was using ChatGPT because I solved coding tasks, and could not answer a single question they managed to ask.

Which is not true, and could have been communicated to me during the interview. What a waste of time because of the lack skills of in communication from the Remitly's developers side. At least this is the impression I got. It is always two sides, I am sure I was not perfect as well.

Questions

  • 4 open technical questions, -1 task with coding, -4 SQL queries, - and 1-minute video with the open question; - 30-40 minutes of live coding (sorting array in different ways with different algorithms, calculating the complexity and trying to reach the maximum efficiency) - During the interview after the coding part they asked 1 single question about JWT.

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Interview Statistics

The following metrics were computed from 1 interview experience for the Remitly Senior Software Engineer role in Ukraine.

Success Rate

0%
Pass Rate

Remitly's interview process for their Senior Software Engineer roles in Ukraine is extremely selective, failing the vast majority of engineers.

Experience Rating

Positive0%
Neutral0%
Negative100%

Candidates reported having very negative feelings for Remitly's Senior Software Engineer interview process in Ukraine.

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