Software Engineer Interview Experience - Newton, Massachusetts
July 1, 2010
Negative ExperienceGot Offer
Process
This company put me through the worst hiring process I ever experienced. The process dragged on for weeks.
They conducted a phone screen and two rounds of face-to-face interviews. Throughout the entire process, I was forced to solve brain teasers and whiteboard problems for every person I spoke with. Furthermore, some puzzles had no solution (according to the interviewer), while others had nothing to do with software development.
Throughout the whole process, I was constantly reminded what a great company they were, how many brilliant people worked there, and what a huge favor they were doing me by allowing my talentless self to interview there.
After going through seven or eight interviewers over the course of two sessions, I received an offer that was far lower than what I asked for. When I politely declined, their head of technical recruiting (not going to name him, but there is only one) proceeded to insult me and try to strong-arm me into accepting their offer – incredibly unprofessional. Needless to say, I still declined. That was in 2010.
I recently spoke with them again for a face-to-face interview with a hiring manager. While he was fully aware of the offer they had extended to me in the past, he still proceeded to give me a whiteboard problem. After I solved it, he informed me that I would have to go through the whole interview process from scratch again, that my added experience didn't matter, and that they would still only consider me for the same position as they had two years earlier.
After that, I had a brief chat with the same technical recruiter who had insulted me last time and who apparently still works there. He proceeded to project the same smug attitude, and I left with a bad taste in my mouth. Needless to say, I will not have anything to do with this company ever again.
Your mileage may vary, but I did not get the impression that they have a good grasp on how to attract quality engineers, and I would not want to work there.
Questions
Write a program that, given four coin denominations and a dollar amount, finds the best way to express that amount using the given coins.
For example, if you have coins with denominations of 1c, 7c, 13c, and 19c, and you need to express $2.12 using the fewest number of coins.
There is always a 1c coin, but the other three denominations are arbitrary.
How would you implement an LRU Cache (LRU - Least Recently Used)? What would your data structure look like?
This was also a whiteboard problem.
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Interview Statistics
The following metrics were computed from 14 interview experiences for the Tripadvisor Software Engineer role in Newton, Massachusetts.
Success Rate
29%
Pass Rate
Tripadvisor's interview process for their Software Engineer roles in Newton, Massachusetts is very selective, failing most engineers who go through it.
Experience Rating
Positive43%
Neutral36%
Negative21%
Candidates reported having good feelings for Tripadvisor's Software Engineer interview process in Newton, Massachusetts.
Tripadvisor Work Experiences
3.0
Everything is great except the actual work
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Newton, Massachusetts, United States
March 31, 2011
Pros: The perks are great. There is a really good benefits package (medical/dental/etc.), and then a ton of stuff to keep employees happy at the main Newton campus:
* Catered lunches
* Sodas
* Snacks
* Foosball
* Gaming systems
* A kegerator
The list goes on.
Pretty much everyone I worked with was very bright. The bar to get in is set pretty high, and there is an informal 'no a**holes policy' that is fairly effective (though opinions on this may vary based on your own definition).
Their development methodology is better than a lot of larger engineering groups. The company motto 'Speed Wins' continues to be applied to a development group that has grown by a ridiculous amount for the past few years (also a con, see below), and fortunately things are still moving quickly.
Work/life balance is good. There are rarely any (as in, I never personally experienced any) crunch-time periods on projects.
The CEO knows what he's doing and is leading the company in a good direction.
Cons: If you're a Java developer and enjoy writing code like it's 1997, by all means join the development team!
The codebase is a mess. It has grown organically over the last decade or so and is unwieldy and not well architected, therefore harder to understand and maintain.
The coverage of the testing frameworks that are in place is nowhere near where it should be, and so very little refactoring happens to improve the situation.
Traditional singletons are everywhere. There are methods that are thousands of lines long. It's a jungle.
To some extent, there is a "not-invented-here" mindset; bringing in 3rd party code isn't encouraged and must be approved by management.
People who are hired are smart and expected to write code that works, but they don't necessarily know how to write clean code that is maintainable, and management doesn't put much value on that either.
As mentioned in the 'pros' section, development is still approached like the company is a five-person startup. This works to varying degrees with a team 20x that size.
There's no real methodology backing it (Scrum, XP, Lean, etc.). This contributes to the existing mess of code.
The bar for entry into the company is set pretty high; the interview process is pretty tough, and candidates are expected to have a very strong CS background.
During interviews, the company is presented as a really interesting place to work with a lot of tough software challenges around scalability. This gets a lot of people excited, but the reality is much less dramatic.
It seems that a lot of really bright people come through the door only to end up with pretty menial work, often maintaining a mess of code that was written up in a hurry by someone else.
5.0
High standards and great benefits
Software Engineer • Former Employee
Newton, Massachusetts, United States
April 4, 2013
Pros: As an engineer, I actually enjoyed the requirement for all code to be peer-reviewed. You can learn faster, and you know that everything going out the door is quality work. The benefits package is excellent. I loved the recreational travel reimbursement.
Cons: The only con would be that there is no longer a dedicated UI team. Each engineer is responsible for their own UI, with varying results.
My understanding is they broke up the UI team a few years ago in favor of the "speed wins" mantra.
4.0
A good place to start
Software Engineer • Current Employee
Newton, Massachusetts, United States
January 7, 2015
Pros: Good benefits and a strong salary, even for entry-level positions. The free lunch 3-4 times a week is good, plus the unlimited snacks and drinks. A nitpick here is that they tend to restock the drinks nobody likes and cycle out the ones that I like and are gone.
Developing is fast-paced, and changes can be shown to others very quickly after completion. This is full-stack development, which allows all engineers to make their own design decisions for the implementation. There is good communication with the product managers, which allows the engineer to give a fair amount of input.
The people at the company are awesome. The culture tends to be laid-back in the teams, and the environment promotes asking other engineers for help on difficult sections.
There are a bunch of training classes for spoken languages and other trainings. However, they are not easily accessible, or I never felt that they were easy to seek out. It would be better if fewer were offered at a time and had a visible place to access and sign up. There is some support for this, but it could be better.
There are plenty of things to do at the office, including video games, board games, and a foosball table. But aside from the foosball table, these get rarely used, if at all.
Cons: Mobility within the company is difficult. In order to switch teams or offices, you need to be excellent at your current position.
The culture for this is one of blame. Bugs you introduce are tracked and remembered indefinitely. These all detract from the excellent rating. This is a serious problem: if you are placed on a product that doesn't interest you, it is difficult to excel and switch to another part.
Work-life balance is not the greatest. Engineers are advised that 40 hours is the minimum, and working beyond that is a good way to show their exceptional work.
The codebase is not in the best state. Code is often copied and pasted, which leads to errors or outdated code permeating the entire website. Encapsulation is not very well achieved because of this. Similarly, the opposite can occur, where several different ways of doing the same thing are implemented as part of different projects, which introduces inconsistencies. Code is rarely cleaned up; however, there seems to be a push to do more cleanup projects.
- 3.0Everything is great except the actual workSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeNewton, Massachusetts, United StatesMarch 31, 2011Pros: The perks are great. There is a really good benefits package (medical/dental/etc.), and then a ton of stuff to keep employees happy at the main Newton campus: * Catered lunches * Sodas * Snacks * Foosball * Gaming systems * A kegerator The list goes on. Pretty much everyone I worked with was very bright. The bar to get in is set pretty high, and there is an informal 'no a**holes policy' that is fairly effective (though opinions on this may vary based on your own definition). Their development methodology is better than a lot of larger engineering groups. The company motto 'Speed Wins' continues to be applied to a development group that has grown by a ridiculous amount for the past few years (also a con, see below), and fortunately things are still moving quickly. Work/life balance is good. There are rarely any (as in, I never personally experienced any) crunch-time periods on projects. The CEO knows what he's doing and is leading the company in a good direction.Cons: If you're a Java developer and enjoy writing code like it's 1997, by all means join the development team! The codebase is a mess. It has grown organically over the last decade or so and is unwieldy and not well architected, therefore harder to understand and maintain. The coverage of the testing frameworks that are in place is nowhere near where it should be, and so very little refactoring happens to improve the situation. Traditional singletons are everywhere. There are methods that are thousands of lines long. It's a jungle. To some extent, there is a "not-invented-here" mindset; bringing in 3rd party code isn't encouraged and must be approved by management. People who are hired are smart and expected to write code that works, but they don't necessarily know how to write clean code that is maintainable, and management doesn't put much value on that either. As mentioned in the 'pros' section, development is still approached like the company is a five-person startup. This works to varying degrees with a team 20x that size. There's no real methodology backing it (Scrum, XP, Lean, etc.). This contributes to the existing mess of code. The bar for entry into the company is set pretty high; the interview process is pretty tough, and candidates are expected to have a very strong CS background. During interviews, the company is presented as a really interesting place to work with a lot of tough software challenges around scalability. This gets a lot of people excited, but the reality is much less dramatic. It seems that a lot of really bright people come through the door only to end up with pretty menial work, often maintaining a mess of code that was written up in a hurry by someone else.
- 5.0High standards and great benefitsSoftware Engineer • Former EmployeeNewton, Massachusetts, United StatesApril 4, 2013Pros: As an engineer, I actually enjoyed the requirement for all code to be peer-reviewed. You can learn faster, and you know that everything going out the door is quality work. The benefits package is excellent. I loved the recreational travel reimbursement.Cons: The only con would be that there is no longer a dedicated UI team. Each engineer is responsible for their own UI, with varying results. My understanding is they broke up the UI team a few years ago in favor of the "speed wins" mantra.
- 4.0A good place to startSoftware Engineer • Current EmployeeNewton, Massachusetts, United StatesJanuary 7, 2015Pros: Good benefits and a strong salary, even for entry-level positions. The free lunch 3-4 times a week is good, plus the unlimited snacks and drinks. A nitpick here is that they tend to restock the drinks nobody likes and cycle out the ones that I like and are gone. Developing is fast-paced, and changes can be shown to others very quickly after completion. This is full-stack development, which allows all engineers to make their own design decisions for the implementation. There is good communication with the product managers, which allows the engineer to give a fair amount of input. The people at the company are awesome. The culture tends to be laid-back in the teams, and the environment promotes asking other engineers for help on difficult sections. There are a bunch of training classes for spoken languages and other trainings. However, they are not easily accessible, or I never felt that they were easy to seek out. It would be better if fewer were offered at a time and had a visible place to access and sign up. There is some support for this, but it could be better. There are plenty of things to do at the office, including video games, board games, and a foosball table. But aside from the foosball table, these get rarely used, if at all.Cons: Mobility within the company is difficult. In order to switch teams or offices, you need to be excellent at your current position. The culture for this is one of blame. Bugs you introduce are tracked and remembered indefinitely. These all detract from the excellent rating. This is a serious problem: if you are placed on a product that doesn't interest you, it is difficult to excel and switch to another part. Work-life balance is not the greatest. Engineers are advised that 40 hours is the minimum, and working beyond that is a good way to show their exceptional work. The codebase is not in the best state. Code is often copied and pasted, which leads to errors or outdated code permeating the entire website. Encapsulation is not very well achieved because of this. Similarly, the opposite can occur, where several different ways of doing the same thing are implemented as part of different projects, which introduces inconsistencies. Code is rarely cleaned up; however, there seems to be a push to do more cleanup projects.
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