The experience was okay but very disorganized.

One of my interviewers was late, and recruiting somehow didn't know people were on PTO. Some interviewers also appeared distracted with other tasks, suggesting they might be stressed.

The interview process itself was excessively long.

I applied for the role through LinkedIn and was contacted by a recruiter. I hadn't done front-end development in about three years, so I was quite rusty. I informed the recruiter that I was probably better suited for a back-end role, but she insisted on this position.

The hiring manager then went on PTO for two weeks right when my onsite interview was scheduled. Consequently, I had to reschedule the onsite for after their return, which occurred while I was on vacation. One of my interviewers for the onsite was also 15 minutes late.

The interview stages included a 1-hour phone call with the recruiter, a 45-minute meeting with the hiring manager, a 1-hour collaborative coding session with two engineers, and finally, an onsite interview comprising five separate interviews:

1. With the hiring manager
2. React list interview
3. System design
4. Leadership interview (this was actually a technical interview on requirements, and my interviewer was 15 minutes late)
5. PM interview

The feedback indicated I performed poorly on the front-end and system design aspects. I wasn't particularly surprised by the front-end feedback, but the system design results were unexpected. I may have erred by suggesting improvements before questions were even asked. I believe I could have communicated some points more effectively. It seemed the interviewer might not have been familiar with blue-green deployment in AWS RDS, though I could have explained the concept better. Based on the feedback, either they didn't grasp my explanation (possibly due to my fault) or I might have overstepped. Additionally, one interviewer was occupied with other tasks throughout our discussion.

Despite these issues, it was valuable practice, and I appreciate the interviewers who were engaged. I did learn a great deal from this experience. The recruiter's feedback, while blunt in stating the overall feedback wasn't positive, was honest, which I genuinely appreciate. I'm uncertain why they proceeded with the remainder of the interview if the initial assessment was so negative.

To be fair, the hiring manager and the product manager (who was a replacement as the original PM was on PTO) were both pleasant individuals. They demonstrated strong passion for the product, which was appealing. The lead engineer also seemed like a capable person, being very engaged. However, I suspect I may have overstepped, as the other engineer remained largely silent, allowing him to take the lead.

I would likely interview with them again, perhaps with a different recruiter, if given the opportunity, as I gained good experience. The decision would also depend on their in-office work policy, a topic about which the interviewees I asked either had no knowledge or seemed confused.

1. Discuss the design of a system you are working on. Focus on how the system is designed.

2. Fix the provided React code and format it as requested. Practice styling components using flexbox, as issues were encountered due to inline flex properties.

3. Describe a process diagram involving users checking out a cart. Multiple processes send reminder emails if carts remain unchecked for a period. Each cart checkout is recorded in a SQL table. These processes are hosted on a single EC2 instance. The four processes are:

   • The vendor checkout cart is written to a table.
   • The checkout cart is completed and written to a table.
   • A process retrieves cart IDs from the vendor for completed checkouts and updates them.
   • A process checks for carts that have sat too long and determines if an email should be sent. Address scenarios involving EC2 instance failure, planned database outages, and API rate limiting.

4. Explain the need for a unified framework for data pipelines due to inconsistent validation across multiple team-created pipelines. Requirements for internal developers differ from those for customers, particularly regarding UI design.

5. Discuss a conversation with a Product Manager (the hiring manager is on PTO) about handling situations where a feature cannot be implemented. The conversation was productive.