The process started with me applying online (after being referred). One week after I was referred I got an email from a recruiter asking to set up a call with another recruiter. When I spoke to the recruiter the next week he asked me a few questions about my resume (not very technical), told me about USAA (I was already sold as I had tried to get in before) and finally asked about me if I was interested in the job. After I assured him I was interested he said that he’s package up my resume along with others and give them to the hiring manager on Friday (it was Tuesday) and that I’d hear something back the next week. The recruiter emailed me that Thursday telling me that the hiring manager was interested in setting up a phone screen interview and that it would be technical but situational too. The phone screen (Skype) was set for the next Monday. The hiring manager, a lead developer and a senior developer conducted the interview. Most of the questions were asking me about a situation and what I’d do in each case like what would I do if a customer said that our application was failing. I was told that I’d hear back very soon (with an emphasis on soon) and I got a call from the recruiter about 2 days later telling me that the hiring manager wanted to fly me to San Antonio, Texas to have the final interview in person. I was went on vacation so this didn’t happen right away but I was contacted by someone at USAA to get my information in order to book my travel. They paid for me to fly to TX on a Thursday afternoon and my interview would be on that Friday. I was given a detailed itinerary of everything and my flight information that Tuesday. When I landed in San Antonio I was greeted my a private car chauffeur who had my name on a white board and was dressed in a suit and tie. That made a great impression on me. The hotel I stayed in was also nice. I was reimbursed for all my food but a very nice breakfast was provided with my stay. My interview at USAA headquarters was at 12 on Friday and lasted until about 2:45. It was attended by the hiring manager, the lead developer and a technical lead. They asked a lot of your standard Java technical questions but also asked some React UI questions. The questions were things like what’s an EJB, garbage collection, OOP, troubleshooting applications, retrieving items from a list, and displaying items from a list in REACT. The other questions were more behavioral such as tell me about a time when you were challenged and how you stepped up to the challenge. I was told by the hiring manager that I would hear back very soon again and I got a call the next business day the next week telling me I got the job! I had to definitely negotiate but it was worth it as we got to a number that was great for me. The great base salary, the extra paycheck for the holiday bonus, 12 weeks paternity/maternity leave, 8% 401k match plus an extra 3-8% at the end of the year depending on your age, the annual performance raise AND the 15% plus annual bonus are great! You just have to make sure that you do well in your interviews and stand your ground if they try to use the fact that we have great benefits to lower the base salary.

It was cool. The interview board was nice and friendly. It wasn't an awkward and intimidating interview. Mainly went over thought processes and critical thinking. Technical interview was really difficult but I managed. We went over code review of Jr's. I had to fix some jUnit failures inside of eclipse. It was just mainly testing technical skills of Java