I applied for a job online in March 2016 and received a response the day after from Antonia, a recruiter at Wayfair Berlin.

We then scheduled a brief phone call where she asked me about my profile, my previous experiences, and my desire to join Wayfair. She also provided me with some information about Wayfair, as well as a general description of the types of projects and missions I could be working on if I joined. The phone call also included a couple of easy and straightforward technical questions, likely to filter out irrelevant applicants before proceeding to the next stage.

The next stage was a technical-oriented Skype interview with two software engineers. We discussed my current and previous jobs, the technical environments and technologies I was familiar with, and so on. They also asked me a couple of questions about general web technologies. Then, we had a very interesting live problem-solving interaction to test my debugging skills. They explained that something had gone wrong and asked me, step by step, what I would do to identify the reason and fix it. Following that, there was a live coding exercise involving code comprehension and small task assignments.

I was finally invited for an onsite interview in Berlin for the final interviews. I met the engineers I had spoken with on Skype, as well as others. First, there was an even deeper technical interview lasting almost two hours, which included code reading, discussions about software architecture, the MVC pattern, website performance, website security, and SQL queries. All of this involved either code to discuss or live coding exercises. The technical interview was very engaging, following a defined scenario while still allowing room for on-the-fly technical discussions. I then met other engineers for an interview focused on cultural fit. I was asked about my expectations regarding the working environment, relationships with coworkers, and general work processes. Afterward, I was invited to ask any questions I had on this topic.

I finally met Antonia for some job-related exchanges and questions before heading home.

The following day, I received a call from Antonia offering me a job!

You open the website and see a blank page.

What do you do?