The process started off with a basic non-technical phone screen. The recruiter asked how soon I would ideally like to make a decision (to determine how the fast the interview process will go). I really liked this attention to detail as other companies have reeaaally drawn the process out over several months through slow scheduling and decision-making. After that, I moved onto the technical phone screen with a back-end engineer where I was asked a few questions about data structures and some of my projects. The meat of this phase was a coding session in coderpad which was mostly object oriented stuff like creating a few classes and adding a data structure in the mix. Not too bad I thought. Then part 1 of the on-site interview came along, there were two technical sessions within a Java (Spring Boot) setup and a session with the director of backend engineering. The first session was pair programming an algorithmic feature related to the companies area and the second was more related to database design and ORM. Could've executed my thoughts a bit more clearly in these two parts. Then the third session was a straightforward Q&A. Unfortunately though, I didn't make it to part 2.

After applying online, a Betterment recruiter reached out and scheduled an initial 30 minute phone call, where he described Betterment and the role in more detail and I went over my background. There was then a technical phone screen with a Betterment engineer, which was a combination of broad technical questions and adding functionality to an existing piece of code via a share coding editor. After I wrote my code, we then would discuss how I might have change things if operating at a very large scale, and it was a really enjoyable discussion. I was then invited to an onsite interview, which consisted of two parts: two technical interviews, one focusing on more algorithmic and data structure coding and another focusing on data modeling. There was then a lunch with a Betterment engineer which was an "Ask Me Anything" session, where I had an hour to ask questions about working at Betterment both from a technical and non-technical perspective. There were three interviews in part two: an interview with the hiring manager/engineering team lead, an interview with an engineering executive, and then an interview with a product manager. There was then a brief session with my recruiter after the interviews had concluded. I really appreciated that this is not your standard "whiteboard" interview p. It definitely felt, and I really enjoyed getting the perspectives of all sorts of people in the organization--executives, product managers, team leads, as well as engineers-- rather than just engineers. Everyone was friendly and very open to answering my questions and genuinely interested in learning about my background and interests. While I was making my decision, Betterment went above to answer my questions and invite me to accept the offer -- multiple phone calls with my recruiter, a call with two engineering executives, and even an email from the CEO! I also had a competing offer deadline that required Betterment to give me a decision within 24 hours, and I appreciated the effort they made to communicate the offer so quickly. I interviewed with dozens of companies, and Betterment was far and away the best interview experience and the one where I felt most valued as a candidate. Betterment seems like a really great place to work in terms of technical problems, culture, and business domain. It was extremely difficult to turn down the offer (and I still wonder if I made the right choice!), and I've already recommended a friend to interview with them.