Found job listing on a job board. Followed the link to their website that has a stringent, overly obtuse list of requirements for how to simply formulate an application email.
This is 2018. Why someone looking to hire talented software engineers is concerned w/ how well they compose an email is beyond me. Might want to start looking more at the substance of applicants as opposed to your arrogant application requirements. You're easily missing out on a lot of good talent.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Did you write the perfect cookie cutter cover letter, complete is "proper capitalization of our oh-so-creative company name!" when you sent your resume?
- Was mostly done on slack
- There was a take home assignment that should be finished within a week
- After the take home there'll be a review of the codebase by an engineer
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe a difficult programming challenge / bug you worked on and how you managed to solve it
The process started with a slack conversation, followed by a take home code challenge, then phone interview, then paid trial. It was a fun process but very time consuming. The staff was nice, and you were able to join a real Automattic slack channel to talk to employees.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Automattic in Aug 2020
Interview
The interview process is outlined on the Automattic website, the first stage is an interview with a developer. The next step is a code test and the last stage is a trial.
My initial interview had very little to do with JavaScript and was about general programming aspects like testing and problem-solving. I was asked a system design question, which caught me off guard, but otherwise, it was straightforward.
I did not make it past the code test stage, but some notes about it:
1. You're invited to a Github repo with a 'broken plugin'. You're given 6 hours to complete a large variety of tasks, both frontend and backend.
2. They say to 'not spend more than 6 hours' but in reality, if you want to pass the test and impress them, you'll likely need to spend 12+ hours on the test. This is all unpaid work.
3. Vague feedback is provided if you fail the test. I mostly got vaguely defined nitpicks about my submission - 'error handling could be better' etc.
I would say, clarify with them what you're expected to do and how far you're expected to go early on, that's something I didn't do and I think that made a difference.
I will say that communication was great and everything happened in a timely fashion. I would just set expectations rather high if you're applying. They're looking for a seasoned developer that's willing to spend the time to impress them.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Given a nested object, remove an item, add an item, correctly increment the ID based on all the other ID's in the nested object.