At first, it was a 30- or 45-minute phone call with a couple of team members and, I believe, an HR person. When one of the team members heard my voice, he was surprised and told me so, since he thought I was female (due to my name). I could tell his voice was disappointed. After this, I was given a coding challenge to solve.

The problem involved building a user interface for any GitHub repo that specifically shows the version, vulnerabilities, and description. It told me to use the GitHub API and "any other API." I went ahead and wasted my time looking into the GitHub API, only to find this feature is only available in GraphQL.

I then used GraphQL to check, but found the information was not enough. I went ahead and did some research on Google but found some solutions (either trial, limited, or requiring extension hacks or development) that I wasn't sure were what they wanted.

I asked the person who sent me the exercise, Bang Lee. At first, he asked me to use GraphQL. Then, when I told him I tried but there wasn't enough data, he asked me to Google around for some libraries.

I then suspected they were either trying to waste my time or just looking for someone to build this for them. I hope it's the former, since this could potentially lead to a lawsuit.

I tried to be patient and asked if he could just tell me either an endpoint they had already set up or what other candidates used (libraries or third-party web services). He then told me, "Sometimes the business requirement is very vague, and we have to creatively come up with solutions."

I am not sure if calling "googling around to find some tools or libraries" to just do your homework is creative. In theory, you could hire a bunch of junior developers and have them Google for a couple of hours to gather data for you to analyze and come up with a solution.

Build a Git status web app that lists out all dependencies, their status, and vulnerabilities.