The process consisted of a conversation with the recruitment representative followed by a chat with a developer on the iOS team followed by a coding challenge. The chats with the recruitment representative and developer were very pleasant and informative but the coding challenge was unrealistic within the time that was outlined. The challenge expected use of their API to make a number of calls and calculate a value based on the transaction feed and then add that to a savings goal for an account. This challenge was used across all development disciplines and specifics were added for specific platforms. For iOS specifically at least one view controller was expected to be used. The amount of time expected to be spent on the project was 2-3 hours. The required project needed much more time than the 2-3 hours that were outlined and a lot of assumptions needed to be made. In the end I spent 5-6 hours on the project building out a solid foundation with unit tests covering the key areas, but due to keeping time in mind certain minor concessions were made as I felt there was proof elsewhere in the project of certain skills. Initially the project was outright rejected with no feedback at all. Like others have said this came across as quite unprofessional considering the time that was required to be put into the project. After expressing this disappointment I was given a followup call with some more feedback. It turns out that the project was generally liked, but the few areas where concessions were made due to time constraints were reasons for rejection even though it was made clear that these areas were not ideal in the documentation which was provided. There was no opportunity to discuss the project or why certain concessions were made. I feel like there are some flaws with the recruitment process. The expectation of completing the project within the allotted time is unrealistic given the scope of the requirements. Then the lack of opportunity to talk through the given solution, even relatively good ones with some concessions, doesn't give the candidate a fair chance to explain their reasoning given the very open goals of the challenge. All in all I think Starling has a lot of room to improve with their technical challenge process. As it stands if you are not willing to spend an unreasonable amount of time on the project to make it perfect then don't bother applying as you will be rejected without given any opportunity to discuss your provided solution.

1. Recruiter call 2. Chat with engineer 3. Take home test They are very keen on reactive solutions that use frameworks such as RxSwift. This and other required criteria should be mentioned in the spec for the challenge otherwise the candidate is left to do what they see fit. How can one meet the criteria if one does not know what they are being tested for. Other companies provide this criteria when it's required and leave the challenge open ended if they don't have specifics. Feedback is relayed over a call by the hiring manager. Hiring manager was rude at one point.