Blankfactor Interview Questions
& Process

So first you gotta do this online assessment, it's mostly basic SQL and some Java stuff. If you do well on that, then you've got a technical interview where they go deeper into Java, like core Java, OOP, DS, and some basic Spring Boot. Then there's a live-coding part, like Leetcode.

So I went through this interview process for a role that was initially called 'full stack' engineer. Overall it was okay, but there are some things that could be better. The job title said 'full stack', but it turned out they really wanted someone for React. I always save job descriptions, which was good because the in-office days changed. It first said 2 days, then an interviewer told me 3 days. The recruiter did fix it later, but didn't tell me. Communication was a bit messy between the recruiter and the tech interviewers. This was obvious in my second coding interview. The main interviewer didn't know about the React focus and had to get someone else to join. They handled it fine, but it was unexpected. First coding interview was good, all about javascript/typescript and code snippets. The interviewer was nice and knew their stuff. Second coding interview is where the React thing came up, and they had to bring in another person. Before the offer, I told the recruiter I'd need a week to decide on any offer. When they gave me the offer, the decision time was way shorter. The recruiter did give me extensions when I asked, but the deadline changes and the suggested start date felt rushed. The offer might have been good for 2 days in-office, but with 3 days, the unclear role focus, and the process issues, it wasn't as appealing. The interviewers themselves were great, seemed like a good team. But the red flags made me rethink it.

The interview process was pretty fast, and maybe too fast. I only talked to 3 people including the recruiter for the first call. The recruiter was helpful in getting me ready, but the whole thing ended really unprofessionally. They offered me a job for way less than what the recruiter and I talked about before I even started. So, I sent a reasonable counter-offer within an hour. I didn't hear back for over 24 hours, so I reached out and they said they'd have an answer by Monday. I didn't hear from them on Monday, so I followed up again and the recruiter said 'as with any interview process we are still considering other candidates.' This was after they already gave me an offer! The recruiter said he'd get back to me by the end of the week, but he didn't. I followed up again the next week and then got a 'form' email saying they decided to go with other applicants. I never got a direct response to my counter-offer, and in the end, they treated me like I never got an offer. I felt like they treated me like I was inexperienced and didn't know how recruiting works. I'm glad I didn't take the first offer because I wouldn't want to work for a company that operates like this, lacks transparency, is misleading, and doesn't seem to know that they are interviewing human beings who deserve basic professional courtesies and communication. The whole thing felt shady. I'd be careful about taking a job with this company.

This was a pretty bad interview experience. The interviewer clearly hadn't looked at my resume and asked me the same HR screening questions about my English and personal life, like 'Tell me about yourself' and 'What do you do in your free time?' The technical part was just one question about why a value might not render in a React component. He mostly talked about React concepts instead of architecture or events. He even bragged about a senior candidate failing to answer his question, which I thought was odd and maybe the question was bad. My answers were right, but he didn't seem to like them. It was super awkward. Then he tried to explain React hooks to me like I didn't know them, which felt like mansplaining.