I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Block (Melbourne)
Interview
3 steps - Briefing with HR. First round coding test. Second round onsite interview.
The recruiter was really warm and quick with updates.
I didn't go past the first round of coding test though I felt it went really well. There were 2 interviewers - one software engineer (who didn't seem to have much experience with interviewing) and an engineering lead. It's called "pair programming" although there's not much input or any useful suggestions from the interviewers - could have just called it a "coding test round". I had 2 approaches to solve the problem which I explained and asked if the program should be extensible to cater certain cases - it turned out that I had guessed his secret plan to extend to the cases and so for a moment he refused to reply to my question and asked me to focus on basic case first - I had to explain again that choosing the right approach out of 2 will depend on this answer and so he had to "reveal' his plan - not sure what he achieves with this approach of interviewing. Also I had asked for what they'd expect from my code (aside from the solution itself) in the beginning of the test so I could cater to that - sounded like this question wasn't expected and so I didn't get the right answer - feedback mentioned that given I chose Java as my language, I should have made use of some of the cool features of Java.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Currency conversion problem.
Inputs:
from, to, rate
INR USD 0.014
AUD USD 0.72
Then what is :
1. USD to INR
2. AUD to INR (which the interview didn't want to reveal though easily guessable)
Expected output should be conversion rate.
I applied online. I interviewed at Block in Oct 2025
Interview
I had a call with their recruiter first, talked about my past experience and what I'm look in for in my next role. Then had a technical front-end screening with two engineers where I needed to build an application. I thought I did well, I was able to implement a working app, but I did not pass. Not further feedback was given.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Implement a memory game in any JS framework or vanilla JS. You need to implement this game based on some demo app that you can play around with before hand. You need to implement the HTML/CSS and JS all from scratch. The game has the following behavior: you need to display N x N cards in a grid lay out. The number of N should be configurable by the user through a slider. When the user clicks a "start" button, N cards a highlighted for 2-3 seconds. Then the user needs to click on the cards that were highlighted. If the user clicks on the correct card, it changes the color to green, otherwise it changes to red. If all the initially highlighted cards are clicked the game is over. What to watch out for: you need to track the cards that were clicked in the grid, you need pick N random cards to be highlighted for each round of the game. You need to make sure the gird of N cards can be increased and reduced. It's not enough that the app works, you also need to write clean/readable code. You have about 40 minutes to implement this, and you need to talk through your work.
Long process. System design felt like I aced it but they didn't pass me. It was the classic design a hotel booking platform question. They put you through a lot of rounds up front.
I applied online. The process took 4 weeks. I interviewed at Block in Feb 2025
Interview
Two rounds: the first was a technical screen and hiring manager interview, and the second round was 5 interviews (2 coding, 1 system design, 1 technical project review, 1 leadership interview)
