I've had 8 steps in the interview process.
1. First typical HR interview.
2. After that, I received a take-home JavaScript assessment. It was designed to evaluate my understanding of asynchronous programming through a real-world example involving music synthesis. It didn't require extensive JavaScript knowledge.
I was initially supposed to have a live interview with an engineer to discuss my solution, but HR told me I would skip that step and move directly to the next stage.
3. I had an interview with a senior engineer, who asked about my background, experience, and gave me more information about the team.
Afterward, HR called me to explain the next steps in the process.
4. I had a cross-functional interview with a Product Manager, who asked product-related questions. We discussed projects I had worked on in my current and previous roles, with a focus on collaboration and product impact.
5. I had a coding interview with two engineers. The first part consisted of implementing a Tic-Tac-Toe game using the programming language of my choice. In the second part, I was asked how I would scale it into a multiplayer web application. We discussed topics such as WebSockets, database scaling, application scaling, and architecture.
6. I had a system design interview with two engineers. I presented a project I had worked on using a diagram I had prepared in Excalidraw. I walked them through the architecture and answered questions challenging my technical decisions and design choices.
After successfully passing these interviews, I was invited onsite for two final interviews: one with the Engineering Manager and one with the CTO.
7. The interview with the Engineering Manager was mostly behavioral. They introduced the team and asked about my experience, previous projects, and how I approach my work.
8. During the interview with the CTO, he presented the company's vision and asked questions about my background, motivation, and how I would approach onboarding etc.
I also had the opportunity to meet the team I would potentially be working with.
Overall, the onsite interviews went very well, as did all the previous stages.
Everyone I met throughout the process was friendly, approachable, and collaborative. HR was also very responsive and accommodating whenever interviews needed to be rescheduled.
However, one day after the onsite, I was told that I didn't have enough experience for the role.
I'm primarily a backend engineer. At the beginning of the process, HR told me that the position could be backend-leaning, but that ultimately wasn't the case. Looking back, I think this expectation should have been clarified earlier, as it might have saved time for both sides.
For a company of Front's size, having eight interviews feels excessive. This level of process can be justified for GAFAM companies, but asking candidates to go through so many steps only to tell them at the end that they are not a fit for the role, despite successfully passing all the interviews (they told me that I received good feedback at each step of the process) is frustrating and feels like a waste of candidates' time.
Additionally, HR did not provide detailed feedback at the end of the process. This is disappointing and not respectful toward candidates who invested significant time and effort throughout the interview process. There was also no response after I sent a follow-up message following the rejection email.
