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Interview experiences
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Interview experiences · Harvey
Harvey AI Agent Interview Experience — Three Rounds and a Frustrating Empty Office
It was a surreal onsite experience. I had practiced the phone-screen problem many times. It was the Google Sheets problem, and I finished it immediately. The recruiter told me about an hour later that I had passed, then arranged the onsite. There were three rounds. For system design, I was asked to design an agent that scores a file according to a set of rules and labels it qualified, acceptable,…
Interview experiences · Harvey
Harvey Software Engineer Interview Experience — A File System Design Screen With a Confusing Interviewer
The file system question that's been going around the forum. Here's my report. Similar to a file system — implement two functions: addFile(String path): given a string like "path/to/somewhere/file.txt", store this file. getFile(String path): given "path/to/somewhere", return the content of file.txt; given "path/to", return the folder "somewhere". There wasn't much of a self-introduction, we jumpe…
Interview experiences · Harvey
Harvey Software Engineer Interview Experience — A File System Question and a Hard-to-Follow Interviewer
The file system question from 1point3acres. The writeup is here: a question that hasn't shown up on the forum before, basically a file system where you implement two functions: addFile(String path) — given a string like "path/to/somewhere/file.txt", store this file getFile(String path) — input "path/to/somewhere" returns file.text, input "path/to" returns the "somewhere" folder There wasn't reall…
Interview experiences · Harvey
Harvey Software Engineer Interview Experience — Patterns from Seventeen Reports
The author summarizes 17 Harvey interview reports from March through September 2026. Technical screens reportedly centered on spreadsheet formulas or text highlighting, with attention to dependency cycles, evaluation timing, and whole-word matching. Onsite coding examples included an in-memory filesystem, expression evaluation, citation highlighting, and duplicate-file discovery with symbolic-lin…
Interview experiences · Harvey
Harvey Software Engineer Interview Experience — Phone Screen Building an Excel set_cell/get_cell in Three Scopes
Another Excel set_cell and get_cell problem. It starts out really simple and then ramps up step by step, and time was still really tight while writing it. Scope 1 Implement a simple Excel. You need and In step one, set only takes numbers, no formulas, so I'd suggest getting through it fast and not wasting time. Scope 2 Step two adds the ability to set a formula, e.g. set_cell("A1", "=B1+C1+1") or…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview: compact junior case study
After a short talent-acquisition briefing, I spoke with potential line managers. The format was compact and structured around junior-level case-study scenarios. Each slot lasted about half an hour and involved no more than two people, so the conversation stayed focused. In some junior sessions, multiple candidates were on the call. That made it feel more like a group assessment even though the in…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview: consulting role and group assessment
My first in-person interaction focused on what the role meant day to day. They explained the position, the research and selection area, the team, and the kind of consulting work involved. We also discussed contract types, hybrid work, the selection process, and relationships with clients. The later conversations focused on recruitment and culture rather than heavy testing. I met people connected…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview: contract role changed to stage
A Hays Technology recruiter contacted me about a stage placement even though I had applied for a contract position. When I declined the internship option, the recruiter said they would check whether a contract was possible and update me. That update never came. I tried to contact them, but the only eventual response was a LinkedIn message with no meaningful follow-up. My calls and messages went n…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview: executive tone and low compensation
The hiring manager made the interview feel as though I were applying for an executive-level role. The tone and expectations were correspondingly high pressure. The offer that followed did not match what I thought the process had promised. The salary was relatively low compared with how senior and serious the interview had felt, and I felt they had not been transparent about the actual scope. I di…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview: friendly manager conversation
My early rounds were simple and conversational. The initial interview covered common questions, and when I realized I had not prepared for one, I could pause and think before answering. The process then moved directly to an in-person conversation with the team manager, and the tone remained friendly. The role and its missions were explained in a way that let me picture myself doing the job, and t…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview: manager meetings and clear expectations
After I applied, the process was straightforward and clearly staged. I started with an online conversation with talent acquisition, who were transparent about the role and how the work would be organized. I then moved through assessment steps and face-to-face meetings with managers. The conversations were short and focused rather than highly technical. I also had a final in-person meeting with se…
Interview experiences · Hays Technology
Hays Technology Consultant interview with roleplay and a communication-focused discussion
I started with a recruiter call that was mostly about understanding the vacancy. After that, I moved into a more immersive interview that included an overview of the company and role, plus a roleplay exercise to see how I handled the situation. Then I had a more personal conversation about my training and prior experience. The process stayed grounded. It was more about fit and communication than…
Interview experiences · HCL Tech
HCL Tech Software Engineer interview: five-round systems focus
The process felt like a marathon: I completed five rounds. It relied heavily on LeetCode-style problem solving but also went beyond surface system design. I had to discuss time-related concepts and how time-series data is handled in a production environment. The difficulty felt average to demanding. What stood out was the expectation to link algorithmic thinking to real operational concerns aroun…
Interview experiences · HCL Tech
HCL Tech Software Engineer programming and HR interview experience
The experience felt tense and confusing. I was asked to write a program, and my code was correct, but I still did not move forward. Later, I felt the HR questions were off-target or silly. Even when I answered those questions correctly, I was rejected. The outcome did not match my technical result. By the end, it felt less like an assessment of my programming and more like an internal decision I…
Interview experiences · Headlands
Headlands New Grad Quantitative Researcher Interview Experience — An Amsterdam Dinner Led to a Fast OA, Then 40 Minutes on My Resume
I'm a rising senior at a UK undergrad program. Over the summer, I got invited to a dinner in Amsterdam by Headlands, which is how I first learned about the company. I applied for the Amsterdam QR New Grad role, and the process moved really fast: applied 7/26 -> OA 7/28 -> first round interview 9/8. OA: 18 questions. 10 multiple choice questions covering probability and statistics, hypothesis test…
Interview experiences · Headlands
Headlands Research Developer Interview Experience — A Four-Part Online Assessment on Stats, OLS, and C++
I remember that when I applied two years ago, the question was still that C++ engineering problem — manually parsing an input string, handling timestamps, and running Kahn's Algorithm to compute a dependency graph. This time the OA was completely different, split into 4 parts. Since you had to keep your camera on, I couldn't take screenshots or photos, so everything below is from memory. 10 stati…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Backend Engineer interview: recruiter screen and unclear follow-up
My process started with a quick recruiter screen focused on behavioral questions. We covered the usual background topics, along with how I’d troubleshoot technical issues when something breaks and how I’d explain a technical concept to someone without a technical background. I made it into the hiring process, but it ended without an offer. In one experience, the recruiter interaction had a good t…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Customer Success Engineer interview with an abrupt manager round
I was contacted through LinkedIn, and someone from the recruiting team arranged a recruiter screen. That interview was fairly normal, covering my work experience along with an overview of the company and role. Afterward, I moved straight to a hiring manager interview that felt very different. The hiring manager barely introduced themselves, didn't ask much about me, and instead went straight to a…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Software Engineer Interview Experience — Onsite with a Rate Limiter, an Airbnb Design Question, and an AI-Assisted Debugging Round
Coding The problem: implement a Fixed Window Rate Limiter. Implement a rate limiter middleware for a web service built on FastAPI and Uvicorn. Every request has to satisfy both of these at the same time: Global limit: at most 100 requests per minute Domain limit: at most 3 requests per second per domain If either limit gets triggered, the request should be rejected. They wanted the fixed-window v…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Software Engineer interview: unclear onsite design expectations
My process started with a recruiter touchpoint, followed by a technical screen and then a three-round onsite. Scheduling and feedback were responsive, but the actual evaluation didn't line up with what I expected. The onsite design segment especially didn't feel like a classic system design round. The constraints made it hard to tell what direction they wanted, so I spent more time guessing than…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Software Engineer interview with a three-part virtual onsite
After an initial recruiter conversation, the process moved into a technical screen and then a virtual onsite. The recruiter call stood out because it walked me through what would happen next and helped set expectations for the final loop. The technical screen focused on live problem solving with algorithms and data structures. I was expected to finish the task and communicate clearly as I worked.…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Software Engineer interview with role homework and employee interviews
I went through a multi-step process that felt unusual in how quickly it ramped up. It started with a recruiter meeting where I answered basic questions. Then I was assigned homework tied to the role, which I had to complete before the next technical conversation. After that, I had a technical interview with the hiring manager. The format shifted again when I interviewed with current employees. Th…
Interview experiences · Headway
Headway Software Engineer interview: withdrew after a delayed process
I initially had an easier path into the process, but it became frustrating quickly. The recruiter seemed unprepared, and the timeline took too long to get moving. Eventually, I decided it wasn’t worth my time and withdrew to focus on other interviews. The process felt unprofessional to me. I didn’t like how long things dragged before anything substantial happened. Because I withdrew and didn’t co…
Interview experiences · HPE
Hewlett Packard Enterprise | HPE Software Engineer interview: live coding and design
Most of my evaluation involved live problem solving. After recruiter contact and scheduling, I coded in the first round while explaining my thinking. I needed to give an answer, justify the approach and show how I'd improve it. The system-design round caught me a little off guard. The hiring manager wanted specific details, including a cloud-oriented design question, even though the role descript…