commercetools Frontend Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The overall interview experience was a waste of time. It started with a 60-minute phone call with the Talent Acquisition Partner, who was fantastic. This was followed by a 60-minute technical interview with a Senior Architect and a Senior Frontend Developer. During this second stage, I encountered two very hostile interviewers. We discussed my professional background and accomplishments. The interview then shifted to numerous technical questions about React, code bundling, transpilation, and APIs, which felt like an interrogation. Some questions were vague, like 'How would you build a React app' and 'How would you convert JavaScript to TypeScript?', with little to no feedback provided. When I asked if they were satisfied with my answers at the end, the response was just 'yes'. Despite answering all technical questions successfully, it seemed the Senior Frontend Developer felt threatened, while the Senior Architect seemed enthusiastic. I was rejected via email the next day, with the reason given being that my answers weren't in-depth enough.

It mainly has three major steps. 1) HR interview, asked for your background checking questions 2) 1st tech interview - mainly asked for frontend deployment. Actually, there might be another tech interview, but unfortunately, I could not move forward with the next step.

I found this job on AngelList and was a bit hesitant since it seemed geared towards more senior engineers, and I was looking for my first job as a self-taught developer. The recruiter was very understanding though, and reassured me that they liked my profile and wanted to move forward. She clearly looked at my GitHub and was nice and professional. The first interview was a high-level technical one. A funny thing happened right before the call - my headset broke! I was at my girlfriend's house and managed to rig it with her pantyhose. The interviewers were cool about it and we all had a laugh, which helped me relax. After that, I had two onsite interviews. The first onsite was about my goals, problem-solving approach, work style, and cultural fit. The interviewers seemed genuinely interested in getting to know me. However, the second onsite started with the interviewer questioning my two years of experience, which threw me off, especially since I was already nervous. Then, I was asked to write code on a whiteboard to curry a function, which I've done before, but I froze. I couldn't give the exact reason for currying they were looking for. The interviewer then wrote some code on the whiteboard that I'd never seen before, though I know it's a common Google question now. This completely blocked me, and even though they tried to switch gears, it was too late. Even though the whole process before this was positive, I wasn't surprised I didn't get an offer. I think it would be helpful for candidates, especially those with less interview experience, to maybe have a take-home challenge first or at least be able to work through code on a whiteboard before being asked specific questions. It's great they don't want to waste candidate time with take-homes, but it puts a lot of pressure on the interview itself for less experienced folks.