I interviewed for a Front-End Engineering Manager role in April 2021. The on-site interview consisted of five hours of calls spread across two days.

The technical recruiter indicated several times during preparation that no coding would be necessary. Instead, there would be one round of high-level discussion around architecture/whiteboarding, or potentially, identifying a bug in existing code. As I am not in the weeds in my current role in terms of React.js specific syntax, I felt comfortable proceeding with the process as described.

The first round was immediately a CodePen/code-sharing exercise in React.js, which was surprising given this was explicitly stated would not be the case. No verbal cues or hints were given from the interviewer(s), nor was the option or expressed permission to reference documentation.

We ended up ceasing the coding portion early and just had a stilted discussion on CI/CD and automated testing for the remainder of that round. The following rounds were project/process-focused or behavioral assessment type conversations with an Engineering Manager, Product Director, VP of Engineering, and the hiring manager, all of whom were extremely personable and informative.

I was told a decision would be made after all of the panel’s feedback was submitted early the following week. Toward the end of the next week, I was informed via a phone call from the recruiter that I would not be getting an offer due to a “huge technical gap,” despite mentioning positive feedback from the other interviewers.

It’s unfortunate there was no attempt to request a subsequent coding sample, or even a glance at my personal GitHub repo, to confirm technical prowess given there was only one outlier round. Misinforming candidates and being so reliant on unanimous consensus indicates a flaw in the hiring process itself and will likely result in overlooking quality candidates.

Questions around project and people successes and failures.