It was OK but very disorganized. One of my interviewers was late and somehow recruiting didn't know people were on PTO. Some of the interviewers were also distracted with other things, which makes me think they are very stressed out. The interview process was way too long.
I applied for the role through LinkedIn and was contacted by a recruiter. I haven't done front-end developing in like 3 years, so very rusty there. I told the recruiter that I am probably more suited for a backend role but she insist on this role. The hiring manager also went on PTO for 2 weeks right when my onsite was suppose to happen, so I had to schedule the onsite after that (while I was on vacation). One of interviewers for my onsite was 15minutes late.
There was a 1 hr phone call with the recruiter, 45mins with hiring manager, 1 hour coding collab with two engineers, and finally an onsite that consisted of 5 different interviews. The 5 interviews were -
1. With the hiring manager
2. React list interview
3. System design
4. Leadership interview (this was actually a technical interview on requirements and my interviewer was 15 mins late).
5. PM interview
The feedback I got was I did bad on the front end and the system design. I'm not too surprised about the feedback on the front end React stuff but was surprised about the system design part. I suggested better designs even before they asked the questions, which may have been bad on my part. I think there was some things I could've communicated better. I think the person interviewing never heard of blue green deployment in AWS RDS, but I could've explained the concept to him better. From the feedback, it seemed either he either didn't understand what i was saying (could be my fault) or maybe I stepped on his toes a bit. One of the interviewers was also doing something else the entire time.
It was great practice though, so thanks to the interviewers who actually paid attention. I did learn a lot from this experience. The recruiter was a bit mean saying the overall feedback was not positive but was honest, which I really appreciate. I'm not sure why they continued the rest of the interview if it was that bad.
To be fair, the hiring manager and the product manager (she was a replacement because the PM for the team I was interviewing for was on PTO somehow) I met were both pretty cool people. They were very passionate about the product, which I liked. The lead engineer seemed like a good guy too because he was very engaged but I think I may have stepped on his toes (the other engineer didn't say anything and let him take lead)
I would probably interview with them again with a different recruiter if I was given the opportunity since I got good experience from it. Depends if they enforce the work in office or not (the people in the interview I asked about that either never heard about it or were confused for some reason).