I was contacted by one of Postmates' in house recruiters. After missing our first scheduled phone call (which she apologized profusely for), the interview process was smooth and on time. There was an initial phone screen via Skype which consisted of programming trivia questions. Next I was scheduled for a full day interview, five hour long sessions plus catered lunch with a couple of other engineers. I arrived early and waited a few minutes for the recruiter to meet me. The receptionist kindly brought me coffee. The recruiter took me on a short tour of their new office, pointing out various amenities (game room, lunch room, kitchen with beverages and snacks, etc). I spent most of the day in the same conference room. My interviewers were all on time, friendly and did their best to answer my questions. The interview was more focused on actual coding than white-boarding. The interview sessions consisted of debugging an app, designing and implementing an algorithm, writing a small program from scratch, designing a system and API (on the white-board), and a talk with the new VP of engineering. I felt that the problems were fair and thorough and I left with a good opinion of the quality of the engineers. The recruiter called me a couple of days later to tell me that Postmates had declined. She gave me pretty detailed feedback, with the key reason being that I wasn't enthusiastic enough about the company. (This primarily via the VP of engineering.) I wasn't super-disappointed since the feedback was pretty on the mark -- I have my doubts about the long term prospects of Postmates or any of the various on-demand/delivery start-ups.

The interview process was a very positive experience. Really smooth and professional. Got in touch with a very nice recruiter who scheduled a technical phone interview for me. The phone interview was done on coderpad. Then proceeding to the on-site very quickly. At the on-site, first was a Engineering Director who asked about some interesting programming problems about algorithms then shared his stories about how he chose to joined Postmates and why. There was lunch with a few engineers on other teams, everyone was super friendly during lunch. Had a chance to just sit at one of the tables to eat, random people came and go so I had a chance to interact with some of the other people in the company from various teams. The vibe was really great and very positive. People joked around and seem to be very happy. Everyone seemed to be having a fun time there and had good relationships with each other. After lunch, there was an iOS engineer who presented a project with a few bugs and was ask to fix it. The engineer was very helpful in discussing the decisions I was making and open to provide his feedback and thoughts. Third, was tested on creating a application that does a specific thing. It's nothing crazy difficult but rather a very fun challenge to test your practical iOS skills and interact with the interviewer and bounce off ideas and come to a best solution. Then there was a cultural fit interview the VP of engineering, who was very informative and transparent about his visions for the company and how he plans to lead the team. Last, a very nice conversation with the recruiter that asked how I felt I did and touched base on some other related information regarding my job search. I felt like the interviewers were all very experienced interviewers. Knew when to give helpful hints and when to sit back and let me figure things out. The best thing about it was I felt like I was tested on many different areas of my skill set. It wasn't algorithm heavy or anything super crazy but rather a fair and broad assessment of my overall skills in different areas. I felt like I was given a fair opportunity to demonstrate what I can do in very practical areas and how I think logically when solving problems. I was sad that I didn't end up taking the offer but this was honestly the best interview experience I ever had in any of my job searches. Responses were quick, things were very organized and set up efficiently. The package was very competitive and fair. I can't think of one bad thing to say about my experience at Postmates. If you are preparing for this interview, my advice would just be open and talk to the interviewers as you are trying to solve the problem. They are nice and are willing to point you in the right direction. They were also willing to answer any questions I had during and even after the interviews. Brush up on some practical iOS skills that you could encounter in a real iOS application. Know your basics and you should be good, good luck!