Applied through the GitLab careers page.

First round was a 30-minute screening call with the recruiter.

Second round was a 90-minute Backend technical interview. I was given an MR prior to the interview. I added review comments before the call and made improvements to the MR during the call, communicating my approach throughout. The interviewer also interacted throughout the call.

Third round was a 90-minute Frontend technical interview. I was given an MR similar to the second round. The MR needed improvements in Vue, HTML, and CSS. I presented the list of improvements that could be made and prioritized them. I asked the interviewer if he was okay with it. He nodded and asked me to continue. The interviewer remained silent throughout the interview, but I continued thinking out loud while making changes to the MR. During the interview, I also mentioned that a few changes, like refactoring the HTML and CSS files, would take more time. The interviewer again nodded and asked me to continue. By the end of the call, I had improved the MR by 95% and had a working MR. The interviewer seemed happy and told me that the round went well.

After a few days, I got a call from the recruiter saying I cleared the Backend round but not the frontend round. I was taken aback as I thought I did well, based on the interviewer's interaction at the end of the call.

I wish the FE interviewer had been more interactive. Based on my FE interview experience, I would recommend GitLab conduct panel interviews for technical rounds for more transparency and fairness.

Tell me about a project that you were proud of.