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The timeline for the COTTS implementations is extremely sensitive, and the operations are unwilling to compromise these dates. You have been invited to support Acme Express Parcels with a proposal for a Data Factory which will help them to recover the project. To do this, you must consider how you will support many areas of the project: -Data Integration -Data Modelling -Data Rules Engine & Analytics -Data Cleanse & Quality -MDM -Business intelligence -Data Governance Strategy Your role is to lead provide Acme Express Parcels CIO with a Data Factory proposal which will support all of these areas, and pave the way to introducing a technology center of excellence. You are to prepare for a meeting Client Programme Director to outline your proposal: 1.) Summarise the challenges of the programme 2.) Options to address the challenges 3.) The approach to Deployment 4.) A recommendation around dealing with the immediate priorities to support the CRM Pilot. You have 30 minutes to prepare your thoughts for a 20 minute meeting.
avatar

Principal

Interviewed at Infosys

3.6★
Jul 3, 2015

The timeline for the COTTS implementations is extremely sensitive, and the operations are unwilling to compromise these dates. You have been invited to support Acme Express Parcels with a proposal for a Data Factory which will help them to recover the project. To do this, you must consider how you will support many areas of the project: -Data Integration -Data Modelling -Data Rules Engine & Analytics -Data Cleanse & Quality -MDM -Business intelligence -Data Governance Strategy Your role is to lead provide Acme Express Parcels CIO with a Data Factory proposal which will support all of these areas, and pave the way to introducing a technology center of excellence. You are to prepare for a meeting Client Programme Director to outline your proposal: 1.) Summarise the challenges of the programme 2.) Options to address the challenges 3.) The approach to Deployment 4.) A recommendation around dealing with the immediate priorities to support the CRM Pilot. You have 30 minutes to prepare your thoughts for a 20 minute meeting.

ThoughtWorks was pleasantly surprised when I volunteered to take the coding test. From what the recruiter said, Principals are not expected to take this test. They sent over a list of a few problems, and I chose one of them to do. This was the famous Kiwiland problem. I won't go into details, but it is easy to find this problem with a simple Google search. The problem was made a bit easier for me due to the fact that I was just starting to write a graph package for myself for a side project. So, I wrote some algoirthms around that core package that enabled me to solve the Kiwiland problem in a few hours. During the on-site pairing interview, I was asked to expand on the problem a bit. We did not get to the final answer, but the interviewers and I discussed ways that I could adapt my classes and algoirthms to solve their problem. Some good discussions went on, and I appreciated the comments of the interviewers. During the debrief, the feedback was that my code was not designed in a TDD-like fashion (which it wasn't), so TDD-designed code seems to be something that ThoughtWorks looks out for. ThoughtWorks also gave me a presentation to write up. They sent over a list of five business scenarios that they probably encounter frequently (ie: integration of disparate systems, scaling up a development org that is having issues, etc), and they asked me to choose one and give a presentation on it. I wrote up a brief PowerPoint, and during the on-site interview, a panel of three TWers grilled me on my presentation and philosophies. It was an engaging discussion, and a lot of it revolved around the use of MicroServices vs Monolithic apps, and how you would implement them at a customer site. In fact, many of their questions for a Principal-level applicant are geared around how you would deliver for tricky clients. At the on-site, two very young TWers asked me about my opinions on social justice and what I was passionate about. I was interested in devoting part of my time at TW to helping social causes, but it looks like a lot of that work is done out of their offices in India and Africa. They do have a bit of work going on in NYC with Unicef. The last part of the interview is their famous logic test, where you are basically given an array of integers and written directions, and you are asked to solve various problems. For me, the key was to take the written descriptions, translate them into simple C-like pseudocode, and "run" the code by hand. After the on-site, TW followed up with a one-hour debrief and final interview with the Managing Principal of the NYC office. Again, more questions about how I would handle tricky client situations.
avatar

Principal Consultant

Interviewed at Thoughtworks

4★
Jun 13, 2015

ThoughtWorks was pleasantly surprised when I volunteered to take the coding test. From what the recruiter said, Principals are not expected to take this test. They sent over a list of a few problems, and I chose one of them to do. This was the famous Kiwiland problem. I won't go into details, but it is easy to find this problem with a simple Google search. The problem was made a bit easier for me due to the fact that I was just starting to write a graph package for myself for a side project. So, I wrote some algoirthms around that core package that enabled me to solve the Kiwiland problem in a few hours. During the on-site pairing interview, I was asked to expand on the problem a bit. We did not get to the final answer, but the interviewers and I discussed ways that I could adapt my classes and algoirthms to solve their problem. Some good discussions went on, and I appreciated the comments of the interviewers. During the debrief, the feedback was that my code was not designed in a TDD-like fashion (which it wasn't), so TDD-designed code seems to be something that ThoughtWorks looks out for. ThoughtWorks also gave me a presentation to write up. They sent over a list of five business scenarios that they probably encounter frequently (ie: integration of disparate systems, scaling up a development org that is having issues, etc), and they asked me to choose one and give a presentation on it. I wrote up a brief PowerPoint, and during the on-site interview, a panel of three TWers grilled me on my presentation and philosophies. It was an engaging discussion, and a lot of it revolved around the use of MicroServices vs Monolithic apps, and how you would implement them at a customer site. In fact, many of their questions for a Principal-level applicant are geared around how you would deliver for tricky clients. At the on-site, two very young TWers asked me about my opinions on social justice and what I was passionate about. I was interested in devoting part of my time at TW to helping social causes, but it looks like a lot of that work is done out of their offices in India and Africa. They do have a bit of work going on in NYC with Unicef. The last part of the interview is their famous logic test, where you are basically given an array of integers and written directions, and you are asked to solve various problems. For me, the key was to take the written descriptions, translate them into simple C-like pseudocode, and "run" the code by hand. After the on-site, TW followed up with a one-hour debrief and final interview with the Managing Principal of the NYC office. Again, more questions about how I would handle tricky client situations.

Cultural interview: why do you want to work for us? what do you know about us and our values? tell me about you? what is your biggest failure? what is your biggest achievement? what company you wouldn't work for? why? you are expected to ask also about your role and what the interviewers thinks about working at thoughtworks (best and worse).
avatar

Principal Consultant

Interviewed at Thoughtworks

4★
Aug 9, 2015

Cultural interview: why do you want to work for us? what do you know about us and our values? tell me about you? what is your biggest failure? what is your biggest achievement? what company you wouldn't work for? why? you are expected to ask also about your role and what the interviewers thinks about working at thoughtworks (best and worse).

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