I applied to a website and received an assignment invitation to evaluate my coding skills on HackerRank. The questions covered Event Delegation, Algorithms, and writing CSS based on an image layout.

After a successful coding evaluation, the recruiter scheduled a phone interview. During this interview, they asked about my experiences and about A/B Testing (they don't know how to write clean front-end code, but they are fixated on A/B Tests). The recruiter also asked me about the commercial aspects of an e-commerce website, and I decided not to elaborate because I had no prior experience in that area. Consequently, the recruiter told me, "You aren't the guy for this position."

This disappointed me. After 10 years of experience, I'm not the right guy because I don't master something unrelated to my job? I'm a technical person! I complained harshly, explaining why I was the right candidate and presenting the facts: Booking.com is the biggest in the world simply because it has content. Without content, it's just a website with mediocre front-end. Imagine a recruiter discarding a highly experienced candidate, one who powers the improvement of the entire front-end of the website, because of a trivial question.

To my surprise, he approved me for the next phase. I guess they don't prefer coding experts, but rather verbose individuals.

In the next phase, I was interviewed by two individuals. The first task was to write a single HTML form within one minute. The next task was to write a JavaScript validation for that form within 10 minutes, without any dependencies and without running the code – just using a notepad. Afterward, they asked me about potential improvements at Booking.com. I reiterated my previous points: the fluid content of the index page with very poor CSS rules (aligning blocks with margins, oh!), pictures overlaid by a horrible gradient, and wasted blank spaces! Beyond that, of course, there were different styles for each page.

They appeared to be a very organized team, but each team is responsible for a specific part of the website, turning it into a Frankenstein's monster. Everyone is focused on achieving A/B test goals and not on writing the best code, solely because the numbers don't lie.

A couple of days after my technical interview, I received generic feedback, which demonstrated that HR doesn't care about candidates. They simply discard them after a superficial question.

To my disappointment, I vowed never to apply to this company again. It's disorganized, focused on personal interests, and uses outdated methods for candidate evaluation.

A/B Test

Commercial understanding of e-Commerce

Improvements at Booking.com