I applied through a recruiter. The process took 1 day. I interviewed at Groupon (Mountain View, CA) in Jun 2011
Interview
Of the five engineers who interviewed me, only one asked questions that would distinguish a good engineer from a mediocre one. One interviewer asked a series of puzzles -- most of them easy and which told the interviewer nothing about my ability to write readable, testable, or correct code. One interviewer ran out of questions after eight minutes (I checked my watch). One was a front-end engineer who asked me questions about front-end work even though I very clearly stated that I was a backend engineer and had no interest in working on the front end.
The technical staff seemed fairly junior and the company appeared to have tremendous technical debt.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Probably the best question I was asked went along the lines of: when designing an API between front-end/UI code and backend servers, what technologies would you choose and, more importantly, why would you choose one over the other?
I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Groupon (Chicago, IL) in Jun 2012
Interview
Starts an initial phone screen. This is followed by a succession of one-on-one interviews which will take the whole day. The interview starts with a tour of the office where you will need to pretend to be impressed by the tacky fun house decor. The highlight is an awkward lunch were you will try to eat and interview at the same time. If you are over 35, I would not even bother applying to this company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
This company is located in a very inconvenient location. They are not in the Loop and if you commute via metra you need to take a cab to get there. They promise to reimburse the transportation but they never do. I found this to be very petty and was glad I did not accept an offer to work there.