Step 1 -- HR call went well
Step 2 -- Online Coding Test via Hackerrank.com It was 3 hours and involved 2 great problems. Not too hard. The recruiter touched base w/ me every week or so, asking me if I'm still interested in the job, as they're looking forward to my completing it and interviewing me. This was appreciated (I was just busy travelling for holidays)
Step 3 -- Technical Phone Screen. Most rude and arrogant phone screen I've ever had. For context, I'm a mid-30s PhD student who has had 10 internships and worked at a world-renowned research lab for 3 years. My point is that I've had a LOT of technical phone interviews over the years, and this one was the worst.
The problems were actually very interesting and I can't complain. Although, they were about probability, which I totally did not expect. Nobody had mentioned the nature of the call, so I assumed it would be like my Google, Uber, Amazon interviews and ask stuff about machine learning research or real-time coding. Anyway, the problems were fine. I did pretty poorly on them, and I was playful with my ignorance (I at least knew what type of direction to take), and I mentioned that if I knew this would concern probability, I would have studied. Basically, the guy was incredibly short with me and way more rude than how I talk w/ spam phone callers. We then continued to an open-ended machine learning question, which I felt I did a great job on. He gave me silence. When I asked if he had any feedback or wanted to continue w/ more details, he said, "I mean, it's an open-ended question. [Whatever]"
At the end of the call, it was finally my turn to ask him questions about his job and Two Sigma. I asked what does he work on (since I had no clue what his job title is, his team, or anything about him). He merely responded with a 1-word answer that's merely the name of the field (i.e., machine learning). That's 1 step away from just saying "Math" Haha, so I could tell he had no interest in talking with me and rather hang up. I alluded to this by saying, "well, I have more questions, but I feel I bombed the earlier probability questions, so maybe you don't want me to ask more questions?" His reply "It's your call."
Me (still upbeat in tempo): What's your favorite thing about working at Two Sigma?
Him: There are many smart people.
(At this point, we said our thank yous and hung up).
He reflects Two Sigma poorly.
