I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at NIO (San Jose, CA) in Aug 2018
Interview
Recruiter reached out to me in LinkedIn as I work currently for world's first and largest electric maker , thought will give a shot ..Manager calls for Ph screen and asks LeetCode question (best time to buy stocks).. finished it in 15 mins and I ask him about job he says more abt company .. but never mentions its front end engineer job , which I don't prefer and dont have experience ..I am more of Services, backend ..so I go to Onsite and
1st round ..LC question- Arrays .. using Binary search .. cool
2nd round ..Guy comes with full attitude and asks me to prog on apple laptop connecting it to TV.. i never used apple and I struggled ..tell him the same ..he says here u have to use apple .. ok .. question about javascript ..2nd about random generation of numbers in javascript.. i did something using my minimal javascript knowledge .. lastly i ask him the solution ..he tells me O(n square) soln.. i tell him i can do it in O(n) in my preferred prog language .. he says no i want in javascript .. watt...
Next comes Director with lunch interview , tells me a little about company and takes me to free lunch line .. it kind of reminds you of scenes in movies ..where ppl wait in lines for free food.. i ask him when they plan to release car in US, he says never.. then i ask .. what is stopping NIO from deciding one day , since we are doing cars in china, lets do software also in china and close the shop in US, his answer was mindblowing ..he says we are going to IPO ..so that's not possible .. wat... i can tell many companies with minimal presence in US and still have stocks on Nyse, Nasdaq etc.. No technical reason or company future related answer
4th round - comes hiring manager.. the guy did ph screen and asks me to draw a 2D animation of rectangle of some sort .. i tell him i am backend /services developer.. ohh this is front end engineer .. then i was like ..why the F... u did not tell me that in ph screen .. it would have saved us both a lot of time .. by this time i was frustrated and decided to go on offense .. i told him i cannot do that task.. asks me about current problem they are facing using REST services.. i drew a whole diagram and explained how to overcome that .. he feels good ..
5th round .. System design .. twitter.. was good.. but by now i know i am just waiting to get through the time ..
6th round .. Product manager ..behavioral questions ... as i have CPM certificaiton.. i tell him all possible ways and can tell he is impressed ..
Guys Big suggestion for future interviews- be clear on what you want .. dont compare yourself with FANG or FLAG companies .. if u want front end ask front end questions in screening .. not old google questions .. it seems like a "fox got itself scars to become tiger" .. oh and lastly don't say free lunch as a major perk.. everyone mentions it ..
I did not even bother following up with recruiter but as some one else mentioned scheduled a call 2 times and did not call and finally called me to say ..they are looking for more front end stack.. i suggested her to make that as the title of the job rather than saying software engineer and hung up
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at NIO (San Francisco, CA) in Apr 2018
Interview
1 phone screen, onsite - 5 technical, 1 BQ.
Probably one of the easiest interviews but their assessment of a candidacy is strange. It seems like no one gets an offer. I'm guessing either they're actually not hiring, or one of them engineering directors is super picky - on a criteria I can't imagine.
Their engineering calibre seems weak. Most of the engineers don't know C++ as well as they'd like to appear. One of them thought my lambda used as a comparator when declaring a std::set was wrong syntax. I politely said, "Oh! Maybe you're right". Also they were asking all the wrong questions regarding an algorithm question.
No feedback at all, which I have a particular disdain for when I feel I aced through their interviews and taught them some C++. They should have paid me for the interviews.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Most of the questions I don't remember but they were simple. Leetcode easy and mediums.