I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Fulgent in Jul 2022
Interview
I was told by the recruiter this was an introductory interview. The beginning of the interview was pretty standard with introductions and then speaking about past experiences as well as follow up questions about those experiences. I had questions about the team and their project, but the interviewer was dry and not friendly. The interviewer seemed annoyed when I asked him follow up questions. Then, to my surprise, there was a coding question. I asked the recruiter beforehand, if there was a technical or coding portion and they explicitly said no and that it was just about getting to know me and my experience. Honestly, I could have been better mentally prepared for the live coding had I known beforehand. So fair warning, your first interview will most likely have live coding.
I was able to solve the coding problem given. I was able to explain the approach, give the correct space and time complexity. I even optimized it. However, the interviewer nit picked on a lot of syntax errors (no autocomplete turned on). He was very patient to point them out and give me hints, but with the outcome, it seems like the interviewer was not very forgiving. It took almost 2 weeks to hear back from them and they rejected me because of my coding experience being less than what they were expecting probably because of syntax.
Overall, the interview itself was not hard. It wasn't a great experience though because there was no transparency or perhaps miscommunication about the interview process. Also, the interviewer made unfriendly and passive aggressive comments when I was stuck on syntax such as "you don't have to code in this language if you don't know it". I hope this helps anyone being reached out to interview for them. Do what you will with my experience.
Lastly, their salary of 80k was pretty low considering the area (Los Angeles) and experience they wanted.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Do the reverse complement of the given DNA sequence.