I was contacted via a recruiter with an opportunity to interview for MapQuest in their Denver office. I had no phone screen just brought in directly for an on-site. The office was an open layout and had the "start-up" feel. I had two sets of whiteboarding questions from two pairs of potential teammates. Each session lasted around 45 minutes. The first round I was asked a simple programming question. However, one of the interviewers was totally unprepared and he admitted it. I got the feeling neither had actually looked at my resume before even stepping in the room. This is very unprofessional and a red flag. The second set of interviews gave me another programming question to whiteboard. The dev asking the question had difficult describing the question. He told me, "Man, it's been a long time since I asked this question". After about 10 mins of trying to explain the question, I was writing my solution on the board and asking questions about the intended solution. He was very unclear in answering my questions still, as if he didn't know the exact question himself. After finishing what I could only guess was the solution due to lack of information from the interviewer, the two interviewers, one that was leading and asking the question and the other who sat quietly the whole time, began to argue if my solution was correct in front of me. Again, very unprofessional to not be prepared for the interview and argue in front of the interviewee. Lastly, I met with the hiring manager. He had only been at the company a few weeks. We had a good discussion and he was a very likable. However, he asked me how I felt the interview went, were the questions too easy, too hard, etc. I didn't have the heart to tell him his team needs training on how to interview. Bottom line: They are unprepared, unprofessional, lack coordination and pull from a set bag of interview questions.
