Speechify Software Engineer interview questions

Annoying automatic emails, they feel they are written fully by AI, pushing the candidate to do a camera and screen-recorded 90-minute technical challenge ASAP. The challenge itself doesn't make any sense, it relies too much on DOM functions that 99% of us do not use at work, felt like I went back to 2010 or even before jQuery was a thing... and if you don't know a specific function that gets the response structure you want from a DOM component, then you waste too much time and it will be not enough to complete the challenge. The challenge doesn't really test your React skills because the custom hook they tell you to create must use all these functions you need to create using DOM functions. They want you to do a solution done their way as they already have tests that must pass according to their solution. I believe that if the candidates provided their own solution, it would be a much better way to evaluate the candidates. I think what they are doing is using the tests to automatically dismiss the candidate if a single test didn't pass. This challenge is feasible to be done in 90 minutes only by the people working there already, and if they want someone from the outside to join, that's not how the challenge should work.

It starts with an automated email telling you that you've been selected to start the loop. The stages seem fine; 90m timed take home to start, then 90m with the hiring manager for behavioral/technical/system design screen. Then 90m with the CEO. Or so it seems? The description of this process differs in the body of the automated email you get and the attached PDF they tell you to review. So right off the bat I’m suspicious, but I figure why not do the take home, 90m is tightly scoped and I enjoy challenges. Unfortunately, the experience went downhill from there. When I clicked the link to schedule the take-home challenge, I was fairly shocked to find a notice that my screen, camera, and microphone would be recorded. Nowhere in the email or the documentation provided did it mention that this would happen, nor was it disclosed when scheduling the assessment. I understand the need to prevent cheating, but this felt invasive.I didn’t even have a 30-minute introductory call with a recruiter about the role or the company, and now I was being asked to not only complete a take-home challenge but also consent to an unknown software recording my every move. Who knows what kind of telemetry it’s running. I didn’t, since I had no time to review and consent to it being run on my system. This felt more like a scam than anything else. I have no issue with live coding exercises, but this level of surveillance felt off-putting and poorly communicated. The lack of transparency and clarity made me feel uncomfortable, so I decided to withdraw. It might be a cool company to work for, their product certainly sounds awesome, but as candidates we need to be treated with a degree of respect, and in a world filled with scams, this poorly planned screening process was a huge red flag.