The interview process started with a friendly recruiter. We hopped on a call and immediately connected. He was extremely responsive as well.

Now for the less positive aspects:

My first interview was administered via Google Meet and Muro, to showcase my design process. Initially, the interviewer was a regular software engineer who seemed focused on just getting through the interview. As a candidate, first impressions significantly shape your perception of a company. While I understand the interviewer likely had other responsibilities occupying his mind, the interview was taking up time for both of us. Both parties should strive to put in their best effort.

The initial question was to design a Jira bulletin board. I was guided to create a general design for a personal board, and then we focused on the design of a team board. Subsequently, we narrowed the scope to the design of individual cards. The interviewer asked how I would lay out the title, subtitle, contributors, etc. I briefly went on a tangent about how the database schema might look, but quickly realized the interviewer was strictly focused on UI/UX. I presented a good layout and explained my reasoning, and everything was progressing well until I was asked about the debugging process.

As a full-stack engineer, there are numerous potential issues. Specifically, the interviewer asked how I would debug empty cards. I asked follow-up questions to determine if the issue was related to networking, the server, or the client. He urged me to simply throw out ideas, so I did. My suggestions included incorrect access controls, networking certificate issues, opening dev tools to check errors, and client/server TLS mismatches.

Once I had exhausted my list of possible problem sources, he explained that he expected me to open React Dev Tools and inspect the virtual DOM. I suppose I may have over-engineered my debugging process, but to be fair, I did ask for further clarification and did not receive it. The engineer did not even seem impressed by my thorough analysis. He was looking for a very specific response. In engineering, and I can speak to this now that I work full-time in corporate, there is significant merit in exhausting all possible points of failure. As an engineer, further clarification is precisely what narrows our scope.

In summary, I felt the interview was treated as another task to be checked off the engineer's to-do list. Based on my research, I am very impressed with the company culture. Every company I've worked with has utilized one of their tools, and I can attest to how excellent their products are. I look forward to another interview opportunity with them, where I am treated as a fellow engineer rather than a checkbox.

Design the UI/UX experience of a Jira board (personal and team).