I recently finished a full interview sequence for a Mobile Developer role on the SalesForce1 team and thought it would be useful to recap my experience to help future candidates.

The interview process starts with a "get to know you" call with the hiring manager. I believe there are two directors or managers for the SalesForce1 team, one in Santa Monica and another in San Francisco.

Next up comes a programming assignment. In my case, I was asked to design an app to search for and fetch movie titles and metadata (e.g., images) from the iTunes Music Store (there’s a public API provided by Apple which you can use). The app should be attractive, allowing favorites to be set and viewed on subsequent launches. The project has to be turned in 24 hours after receiving the assignment. I didn’t have too much trouble with about 90% of the app, but I must admit having a bit of trouble trying to think of various unit tests for this client/server app. Hearing that I passed the code test was a pleasant surprise.

The next and last step was the onsite interview. My day started at 9 a.m. and finished at 4:30 p.m. In total, I spoke with 11 engineers (not including the hiring manager).

You’ll get a list of the people you’ll be speaking with before you arrive, which is helpful for looking up their backgrounds on LinkedIn. Many—if not most—of SalesForce1’s iOS developers are remote from Santa Monica. So, it’s very likely you’ll sit in front of a Google Hangout screen talking to people from Florida, Idaho, Texas, New York State, and San Francisco (usually two engineers at a time for each hour-long interview session).

I really liked the Santa Monica office, probably a five-minute walk from the famous Santa Monica Pier and one street over from the (very busy) Third Street Promenade, with all its shops and restaurants.

I was able to get a guest internet access code from the office manager before the interview started (in case you need to get online to show off something you did, or if you want to check messages during quick moments between interview sessions).

If I had to guess why I didn’t get the job, the ultimate thumbs down may have come from the junior members of the team (a couple of which were local to Santa Monica and sat in the conference room with me). The younger devs didn’t seem particularly welcoming or interested in me, unlike the remote folks on the Hangouts screen. I also didn’t make a secret of how enthusiastic I was for this job, given how friendly the manager and my fellow senior iOS developers were. In retrospect, I probably should have dialed down my excitement for this potentially fun and challenging position; I believe it was one of the primary factors behind the team’s heartbreaking decision that I was not a good fit.

Hopefully, my experience flunking the SalesForce interview process will help you to prepare to pass your interviewing day. If you find any of the information in this review helpful, please let me know by voting "Yes" on the "Helpful?" question below (this helps motivate me to be as detailed as possible).

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