The first couple of interview steps were a low-pressure Slack chat, followed by a technical take-home test. I found the interview process to be slow, confusing, and inconsistent. My interviewer would sometimes go as long as two weeks between responses, which made it hard to have a very engaging conversation.

I actually enjoyed the initial Slack chat screen. It was a great, low-pressure way to demonstrate how I function in a remote environment, and I was able to play music and be more myself than I usually am in an interview.

However, it became clear that the company has no process for hiring for JavaScript skills specifically. The take-home test consisted of a broken WordPress plugin written entirely in PHP, with the simple instruction of "make it better." It was such a non-sequitur, as I was applying for JavaScript, and PHP was nowhere in the job description. I was able to hack my way through it enough to at least get it working and up to internal code style standards.

I was asked a few follow-up questions, to which I responded in a general way, opening new conversation. I received no response. Then, after a few weeks of silence, I was told they would pass on my candidacy because I haven't contributed to open-source projects much in the past.

Overall, I found Automattic to be disorganized, and I was never given the opportunity to actually demonstrate my technical acumen and how I could serve the company. If the hiring experience is any indication of how they run the company, than frankly, I am happy to pass on the opportunity anyway.

Why did you decide to apply to Automattic?

How long have you been working remotely?

Explain how async calls work behind the scenes in JavaScript.

Tell me about a project you’ve worked on, something you’re proud of or found especially interesting.

Explain what CSRF is and how to prevent it.

What’s the most recent language you learned? What do you like about it?

What do you want to learn next? Language or otherwise.