The interview was easy, and the team seemed to have good chemistry working together.

Based on the position I was interviewing for, it seemed somewhat beneath my level, but I really liked the people. The role primarily involved creating templates for their ads, which a very junior front-end engineer could have handled. However, the company was in a growth phase, so I felt there were opportunities for me to do interesting work.

Unfortunately, I also mentioned my scheduled six-week family vacation in June in Europe (which I was willing to take unpaid). This gave them second thoughts. The VP of Engineering stated he couldn't meet my minimum salary requirement of $100k, offering only $95k instead. I interpreted this as a reluctance to hire me due to my vacation disclosure. Given the company's unlimited vacation policy, a new employee taking six weeks off would not have been ideal for him. I'm unsure if current employees would ever take that much time off, though I understand his perspective.

Should you disclose pre-planned vacations (or any other issues)? Absolutely, even if you think you won't get an offer. Honesty is the best policy at a small company like this. Imagine disclosing it after joining; it wouldn't put you in a good position with the team.

I ended up joining a different, very early-stage startup where we built the product from scratch. During the two years at my current company, my salary increased from $130k to $175k (without me asking), so it all worked out well in the end.

Very basic JavaScript questions. If you've been doing JavaScript for at least a few months, you should be able to answer these questions.

They also asked me algorithm questions, which I know nothing about, and I'm pretty sure I did not get them right, but it was okay.

It was fun to learn about those topics, since algorithms aren't something I would have tried to learn on my own.