An Interview with Thoughtworks

Recently I had been in a job search mode, got interviewed by Thoughtworks and Microsoft(when I was in US). I was keen in focusing on the “fundu” companies if you know what I mean. Lots of people know how Microsoft Seattle interview process goes, I would certainly like to belabor on Thoughtworks India process. I would say it was a fascinating experience where I learnt quite a few things like test driven development, pair programming and no cubicle culture. Also it did refreshed my old school problem solving techniques, white boarding etc.

So it all started by receiving an email from an HR person about an opportunity at Thoughtworks. Since I already followed Martin Fowler’s blog I knew quite a bit about them. They set up a informal like conversation with a HR person that week. We discussed a lot about what I do, I want to do, about my blog, projects on my resume. It was really a conversation about me marketing myself and the HR person doing his part for Thoughtworks. It went for about one and half hour which ended with he asking about my salary expectations.

After about 2-3 days I got a call from the same person explaining me the next step. He sent me an email which consisted of 2 problem statements Mars Rover problem and Sales Tax problem. You could certainly find these statements by surfing on the net. Here is a link to the sales tax statement I found http://www.experts-exchange.com/Programming/Languages/Java/Q-23985207-SALES-TAX-Java-problem-solution.html. I chose the Mars Rover problem just thinking it was more interesting to solve. It is important to that this stage really decides many things about your onsite interview. They do not just need a working solution, anyone could write one in less than an hour. What makes a good solution is how well the objects are designed, the naming convention and an overall decent to good OOPS knowledge implementation. I mean how well encapsulated your objects are, do you program too much to the implementation rather than to an interface, is your solution extensible because in an onsite interview you would be asked to extend this solution with a more complex requirement. I would suggest you to get a design patterns book just to improve the object design strategy in your solution, I do not say that design patterns must be used but they do help in achieving good object oriented code most of the times :).

After this, I got a call in 3-4 days for an onsite interview in their Pune office. The office, as I expected after reading few blogs, was different than my earlier offices. No cubicles, just one big room with round tables surrounded by chairs, people working on their laptops, a ping pong table at one side and nice lunch room. It was a really innovative idea to have such an office structure. I reached there a little early and I asked for restroom just to get my bearings! I asked a person working there,whether the restroom had cubicles atleast, thank god he took it lightly. The onsite process was designed as follows –:

- A self assessment test – 50 super easy questions in 12 minutes. These consists question like Miner and Minor, are they 1) same meaning, 2) contradictory, 3) Neither.

- A logic test – 11 flowchart questions in 1 hour 15 min. These problems are like following a flowchart, executing the instruction at each step and writing a final output. You just need utter concentration for this one but its fun.

These tests are by no means show stoppers, I think everyone gets through these unless you are really dumb. So no worries until now.

- Pair programming – Here a well seasoned person for Thoughtworks would pair with you and go about refactoring your code submission. This has to be an interactive session where we have to put our own ideas in improving the design and that person would do his part. Make sure you think about some improvements in your design if possible before getting in this stage. You should not be really adamant on your idea if you have any about solving some issue, pair programming is about good interactive programming. At the same time you should not be too submissive and agree to everything for obvious reasons.

- 1st technical interview – This involves 2 Thoughtworkers interviewing you at the same time. There would be discussion about technical expertise you possess, for me lots of questions on .NET were asked. I had to white board some of them to explain some code. There is OOPS design problem to be solved, here they see your capability of creating a decent high level design on the fly within the time span given. The problem could be something like design a video store library application or something on those lines. I kinda screwed up during this stage, my solution for the problem was not really good as far as I know. White boards do make me uncomfortable sometimes :) This interview lasted for like more than 1 and half hour.

- 2nd technical interview – This is a similar interview like the earlier one. I guess its another chance to see if a candidate can show better performance this time. By the way I left my home in Mumbai at 6 in morning and it was 7 in the evening for this interview. I was fucked up pretty much talking all day but I did experience such a day with Microsoft too. There is nothing really different to talk about this interview since it basically is targeted again on OOPS concepts and some problem solving techniques like creating a XOR gate from AND and OR gate.

So that was my experience and I guess it resonates with any other person who went until the final stage. I think it was a good experience knowing a different culture in the software field. Also to be honest it did help me to improve my coding skills by coding for some fun problem statement and getting it reviewed by a coding ninja, getting their insight on improving the design. So let me know if any of you guys need any more “up close” insight on the interview process.

Best of Luck!