I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at G-Research (London, England) in Jul 2012
Interview
Had to sign a confidentiality form so I won't get into much detail. Anyway, the interview involves no human interaction: the only words I exchanged with the interviewer were to answer the question "Java or C#?". Then, you are given some problems (I had 4) and you have a computer to code them up. They use Windows, and you have both Visual Studio and Eclipse at your disposal. They expect you to code up running code, and you have only 1h. Definitely a hard interview (I failed).
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
I can't get into detail on this one due to confidentiality, but basically I was asked to write a software that, given the appointments of n people and a period of time (say a long in ms), finds the soonest moment in which you can organize a meeting with all of them present which lasts that long. So it's about finding intersections, and in addition the whole appointments thing was a premade class from them, so they kind of expect you to build upon other people's code in very short time.
The interview process was thorough and well structured. It focused primarily on data structures and algorithms, and the level was broadly in line with what you would expect for a software engineering interview of this type. I cannot share specific details of the questions, but standard preparation in algorithms, data structures, problem solving, and coding under interview conditions should be sufficient. Overall, it felt rigorous but fair.
There were mostly algorithmic questions to be solved on a whiteboard. Then, after a lunch with a couple of the junior staff, the tell you whether you’re into the next round. There is also a test beforehand.
2-3 parts depending on team. Pretty in depth on topics. 2 coding rounds I believe. Interview process is fairly quick. It’s not a process that takes 3-4 weeks. 2 weeks max, 1 week if you’re really adamant.