I applied through an employee referral. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Niantic (Berkeley, CA) in Oct 2017
Interview
There is one technical phone interview and then one-day on-site interview. I got the phone interview by employee referral. The technical phone interview took about one hour and asked two questions.
Interview questions [2]
Question 1
Given a 7-column keyboard sorted in alphabetic order. There is a cursor on the keyboard, and you can move it 1 unit to left/right/up/down. The input is a word, you need to design an algorithm to give movements of cursor to type this word.
Given a collection of numbers, it has two functions: insert() and getMedian(). Choose a data structure to construct this collection and design the insert() and getMedian() function. Explain the time complexity of each function.
I applied online. I interviewed at Niantic in Jun 2017
Interview
The woman I spoke with in Niantic staffing was cheerful, approachable and gave a detailed description of a day in the life while working at Niantic. She was accessible by email and prompt in her replies. She conveyed the optimistic energy buzz at Niantic's offices and was genuinely excited by their work.
Two phone screens - one with a recruiter, another with the CMO. I was invited for an onsite. They put me in this huge, excessively warm office and I met with two people, the hiring manager and then a video call with the CMO. On my way out I was told by the recruiter that they would be in touch early the next week (this was a Thursday, so seemingly Monday/Tuesday). Not only did she not reach out the next week, they never bothered to reach out at all. Really an unpleasant and rude way to treat someone who has accommodated your company with three interviews. I understand they are a startup and move quickly but it takes mere minutes to fire off a rejection email.