I was initially given a debugging test similar to others who have posted here on Glassdoor. Mine was in Node and Express with Chai as the test runner. I definitely give props to Etsy for mirroring a real on-the-job experience with this debugging test; it mirrored my experience exactly with Scala and Angular. They didn't ask stupid brain teaser questions like most companies, which usually have no correlation to how you might perform on the job. You can tell with this initial HackerRank assessment that Etsy wants real developers, not computer scientists.

However, my main concern is the time limit. With candidates not being used to this IDE, I would imagine most people who fix all bugs and pass the tests are candidates who are directly familiar with the language being used for the test or are candidates who barely make the one-hour cutoff. This contradicts the fact that for the job I applied for, there were no specific language requirements.

While I don't doubt my capabilities, or really anyone who's at least held a full-stack internship or role in the past to successfully complete this debugging test, I would advise Etsy to either:

1. Bump the allotted time by at least 10 minutes to give a little leeway for candidates to get used to the IDE provided on HackerRank.
2. Or, put more specific languages in the job requirements.

I think my arguments are completely valid, speaking as someone who has full-time job experience contributing to all parts of the stack in prior roles, and who has successfully learned unknown languages when starting new positions. Drawing on my experiences with unknown stacks, I'd say between 70 to 90 minutes are needed.

Nevertheless, I directly applaud Etsy for not asking silly brain teaser questions.

This is a debugging test with very specific tasks involved.

If you've had a full-stack role before, this should be very straightforward.

Just be forewarned on getting used to the IDE and some limitations you might come across.