The interview was fully remote as I was not in the same country at the time and it was not possible to travel due to Covid restrictions. It consisted of an initial HR screening followed by three separate stages:
1. This was a double interview - first a soft skills and personality chat with HR followed by a more technology-oriented chat with one of the senior developers. I enjoyed both of these chats; they were primarily about getting to know me as a person and the way I think as a developer, and of course me getting to know about the company culture, way of working etc. There weren't any exam-type questions, it was really two conversations.
2. Homework, a small project in Node.js with Typescript. I did not enjoy this one. On paper it was a good idea: a basic setup for the application was provided together with a detailed specification and a test suite that needed to pass. However, the test suite was broken out of the box, there were some inconsistencies in the specifications and it was obvious that the setup was put together from pieces of some older task(s) so the code itself was inconsistent and outdated in places. Finally, while the problem was described as requiring no more than 4 hours to complete, it was realistically a solid 2-3 work day task - luckily full 72 hours were provided to finish, but not that fun when done on top of full-time work at the current job. I would have timed to do it over the weekend if I had known this in advance. In the end I was able to submit a solution I was sufficiently satisfied with, and they liked it too.
3. Another chat, this time with the VP of Engineering. More soft skills, getting the feel of the person and the culture fit. Not that different from the first two conversations.
Overall it was a pleasant interview process, but with some frustrating points.
Positives:
- Everybody I spoke with was friendly and open.
- The three conversations were pleasant and even fun. All questions I was asked were reasonable and made sense; I was given proper answers to any questions I had had.
- I was kept in the loop by the HR/recruitment person throughout the process, so I was aware what the following steps will be at every point.
- The offer was fair.
Negatives:
- Taking into account the last mentioned positive point, the whole interview process was still a bit chaotic. Some calls were moved around as different people became available or unavailable and in the end I did not get to talk to every person that was originally planned. This is understandable, considering the fact that the interview was done at the time of Christmas holidays, and it did not really affect me throughout the process, but it is still worth pointing out.
- The homework task, I have already described its problems. This task was provided by a consulting company that specializes in developer interviews and they responded positively to my feedback and suggestions so there is hope that it will improve, but still it just made everything more stressful than it needed to be. I would have also liked a bit more detailed feedback on my solution from people who reviewed it - while I was obviously glad that they liked it enough to proceed with the interview process and finally give me an offer, it would have been nice to get some more details on what they liked or didn't like.
