This is just focused on the tech phone screen portion. I do not yet know if they would like to chat further.

I spoke with another senior front-end engineer. He was very pleasant and friendly, but said he had been double-booked, which is why he was 25 minutes late to the call. I took him at his word, but that doesn't speak well for the recruiting team, as it can come off as not prioritizing your candidates and managing those connections.

Once we began the discussion, we spent about 10 minutes discussing each other's experiences in the industry. I focused on my last two positions. After that, he asked me about different front-end frameworks, particularly React, and my experiences with and opinions of them.

We then proceeded to the coding challenge, which was somewhat significant to real-world problems – simple, but actually fun to solve. This scored big points with me. While algorithms and CS theory are absolutely crucial, most of that is abstracted away in our line of work. Who the hell wants/needs to implement a sorting-algorithm-of-the-day in a browser?!

After the coding portion, the interviewer opened the floor to any questions I had. He tended to shy away from answering about other teams in the company, only his own. While I absolutely understand that, he also mentioned I could be hired for any vertical, so that's problematic and doesn't guarantee accurate information.

Overall, a good experience, but I felt slightly rushed because of the late start. The interviewer seemed fairly positive in describing the company, but I could sense there were some frustrations in the dialogue. I'd definitely consider an on-site.

Without specifics, I was expected to understand common JS techniques, such as variable scope and OO-programming. A predefined list of tests was written to ensure accuracy, and the question was iterative, meaning we built upon the previous solution. The interviewer was happy to help along the way.