I applied online. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Avant (Chicago, IL) in May 2019
Interview
Shortly after applying I was reached out to by a recruiter from Avant. Standard phone screen then he sent me a take home project that was to be completed in 3 days.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Design a credit card system. Front end was not required.
I applied online. The process took 6 weeks. I interviewed at Avant (Chicago, IL) in Apr 2019
Interview
First step of the process was a 3 day take home challenge, which I completed successfully. They are flexible with the language you choose to develop the Software with and are pretty clear on what needs to be accomplished, while giving you the freedom to approach it however you'd like. I really appreciated this.
I was moved forward with an on-site, or Google Hangouts if you are not in the Chicago area. I chose Google Hangouts, and was scheduled for a 3 1/2 hour interview, blocks of 3 one hour technical screens with engineers, and then 1 half an hour behavior screening with the director.
First technical screen went ok, the engineer did not seem to have interest in myself or the problem. Not a "tell me about yourself" small talk at all, which kind of gives me a really un-inviting vibe/start to the whole interview process. All he really did was send me a codeinterview link and watch me try to solve it myself. I solved/coded the problem successfully after having to re-read the problem to myself a couple times..
Second technical screen went really well. The engineer was a great person who genuinely wanted to know my interests. The problem was to implement a method that checks if a Connect 4 move in the game is a winning move. I walked through all the steps successfully and my logic was correct, but no code as walking through the logic took too much time.
Third technical screen was a bit odd. They wanted me to implement Black Jack via code editor and have some working solution. This kind of question is really meant to test your OOD topics. I was really pushed by the interviewer to have some "working code" instead of thinking about the logic of all my classes, which made me feel that he really didn't care about my thought process but rather if i got to a final solution or not, which is really sad.
Last screening was with the director, which he was 15 minutes late to. The whole "behavior/cultural fit" was really rushed. He didn't seem interested at all in what I had to say and seemed really distracted by things that were going on outside of the tiny interview room he was in. I had some questions which he did go in depth into to answer, but I already felt like he wasn't interested in what I had to say about my initial impressions of the company as a whole and how its core values (diversity and Inclusion in the workplace) resonate with what i'm looking for.
A few days later I got my email saying they wouldn't move forward. My experience wasn't great, but it wasn't terrifyingly horrible either, they just need to make some adjustments to their potential candidates.