I was really looking forward to my interview at HealthFusion. They started by giving me an at-home online Java coding test to complete. Requiring candidates to actually write code for their interviews? Great! +1! I did well on the test and was scheduled for an in-person interview. The HR representative sent me a list of my would-be interviewers. Judging from the list, it seemed like they had a very diverse group of engineers. Right on! +1! I was told over the phone that HealthFusion had a flat structure, was profitable, and had engineers who've been there for 8+ years. Sounds awesome! +1! Things took a turn for the worse when I got to the actual interview though. I was led to a conference room where four copies of my resume were distributed around the table. Wait a minute, was this going to be a 4-on-1 interview? Yes, yes it was. Four members of the engineering department entered the room and started the interview. There were many times during the interview when the five of us awkwardly looked around the room wondering where the next question would come from. There was one interviewer in particular who had a hostile attitude throughout the interview. At one point this interviewer shoved a sheet of paper at me with a SQL design problem and curtly said "you have 15 minutes." Towards the end of the interview, I asked this interviewer to describe the architecture of HealthFusion's product. She told me that they had a single web app. I asked her if they employed a service oriented architecture (which is the generally accepted sane modern way to structure a web app). She didn't seem to understand my question and kept reiterating that they had a single web app with multiple servlets. She then accused me of not knowing what a web app was. Nice. In another instance, that same interviewer mentioned that the developers all checked their code into "trunk." This prompted me to ask if they used Subversion or Git for their version control. She said that they had plans to migrate off of their current version control system, Microsoft Visual Source Safe, to a newer system. They were definitely not going to use Git, she said, but they were going to use Stash because of its integration with Jira. I looked up what Atlassian Stash was when I got home and found that it's an alternative to GitHub. Which means it's actually Git-based. Good.

I was referred to HealthFusion by a recent hire. I was contacted very quickly by the company's corporate recruiter, who set up an initial interview with herself and the Director of Software Development. The first interview was a relaxed and informal lunch meeting where we discussed background, experience and common goals. At the conclusion of the first meeting, we scheduled a follow up interview, which consisted of a skills assessment test. The test covered Java fundamentals, SQL and design principles. It was not overly difficult, but touched a range of topics that an experienced developer should be familiar with. After the test, I was asked to come in for a final interview. This was a longer interview where I met the UI Director and company CEO, followed by two senior level engineers. The latter part was a more technical interview that included Java and DB questions along with some white-boarding. The recruiter and Director of Development were both very accommodating throughout the interview process. They were willing to schedule the interviews around my normal work hours, and made themselves available via telephone and email to answer follow-up questions and provide additional detail on the position.