I was so excited to get an interview at Factual but it turned out to be the most disappointing interview process I've ever gone through. The HR guy was very courteous and informative in my first phone interview. He told me I would have to complete a project before being considered for a second interview. I asked if they could also send me the project for an open position he mentioned that was one level below (Data Specialist) and he sent both right away. The projects were interesting, fun, and challenging. Obviously I wanted to stand out and impress these guys, so I poured my heart and soul into both of them. The lower-lever one was much easier. It asked for six or more regular expressions that would find certain characteristics of Yelp restaurants (location, hours, etc.). I sent that one in first and was scheduled for a second interview for the Data Specialist position. The Data Engineer project was to write a program in any language that would find a given list of words inside a word search puzzle. This one took way more time but was also a lot more fun than the other one. I made sure it was perfect and sent that one in, excited and believing I had gone above and beyond on both. Then the guy I was supposed to interview with canceled. Four times. And not with any notice either. Each time I would be sitting by my phone anxiously awaiting the call and when the time had passed, I'd check my email to see that he had canceled minutes before we were supposed to talk. By the fourth cancellation, my friends, family, and I pretty disappointed and skeptical about what working at Factual would actually be like. But the HR guy continued to be super nice and apologetic, so I kept my chin up about the company. I finally had my second phone interview and it felt like the guy wasn't even paying attention as I talked about my background and experiences. Then he asked if I had completed the project! That's when I felt like I'd been punched in the stomach. I poured so much time into that thing and he hadn't even looked at it. I was really let down. I told him I had completed both projects and he said he hadn't heard of anyone doing that before. At the end of the interview, he posed a couple scenarios and asked how I would approach tackling them. They were challenging questions, albeit a bit vague. I answered each one by thinking out loud and giving a few different ways that I would go about solving them. I guess I didn't provide the answers they were looking for because I didn't get that job. When I asked whether I was still in the running for the job I had originally applied and interviewed for, I was told that I couldn't even be considered for it since I didn't get the lower one. I really wish I had known that was their policy before trying to surpass expectations by doing both projects.