I applied in-person. The process took 3 weeks.

The technical interview was conducted by a third party, Karat. The first 20 minutes of the interview, which focused on architecture, looked at different React code examples inside of their web-based IDE, which seemed pretty good. This included questions on what state management system we could use, what other options we have, how to handle errors, and some file structure questions. Then came the coding part.

According to the PD, they are looking for engineers that understand how to manage context, write verification loops, understand different models, deal with large PRs, and know how to enforce quality and apply that to make and build maintainable systems. The prep guide for the interview mentioned things like understanding complex state, re-rendering, and the component lifecycle. What it actually was required was writing a version of React Hook Form and Zod from scratch. That is fair for understanding how someone thinks and codes.

However, within their IDE, there is no auto-complete, syntax highlighting is barely there at best, the IDE doesn't use TypeScript but throws TypeScript errors sometimes, and it is also an outdated version of JS and React. It is so far removed from how an engineer works today. In an age where an engineer is expected to move fast, ensure quality in an agentic way, deal with large codebases, and make good technical decisions (which is what their PD asks for, by the way), you are stuck solving an issue of how to see if an email is actually an email while trying to remember JS syntax from 2015. Come on, if you want modern engineers, do your own tech interviews or find a better third party.