Etsy Fullstack Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Got a debugging test at the start, similar to what others have posted, but mine was in Node and Express using chai as the test runner. I really liked that Etsy mirrored a real on-the-job experience with this debugging test (it was just like my experience with Scala and Angular) and didn't ask silly brain teaser questions like most companies, which usually have no connection to how you'd do on the job. You can tell from this initial HackerRank test that Etsy wants real developers, not computer scientists. However, my main concern is the time limit. With candidates not being used to this IDE, I'd guess most people who fix all bugs and pass the tests are either candidates who are directly familiar with the language being tested or candidates who just barely make the 1-hour cutoff. This is kind of contradictory since the job I applied for had no specific language requirements. While I don't doubt my capabilities, and I'm sure anyone who's at least had a full stack internship or role before could complete this debugging test, I'd suggest Etsy either: 1. Increase the allotted time by at least 10 minutes to give candidates some breathing room to get used to the HackerRank IDE, or 2. Put more specific languages in the job requirements. I think my points are totally valid, speaking as someone who has full-time job experience contributing to all parts of the stack in prior jobs and not knowing the languages in the stack when starting. Based on my experiences on unknown stacks, I'd say between 70-90 minutes are needed. Nevertheless, I directly applaud Etsy for not asking silly brain teaser questions.

The interview process started with a phone screen where they gave an overview of the company. After that, there was a technical phone interview. I talked with a hiring manager and we did a couple of programming questions on coderpad. The interviewer seemed to misinterpret a lot of what I said, making negative assumptions. When I talked about challenges I've faced, they tried to give me unsolicited life advice on how to find challenges during interviews, which wasn't what I was looking for at all. Similar reactions happened during the coding part. I did mess up once in the coding section, confusing nlog(n) with log(n). About an hour after the interview, I got a rejection email. It’s good to know quickly, but I think it shows the negative assumptions made during the interview. A better process would involve more thought about assumptions.

So first there was a quick technical screening call, then a coding challenge on Hacker Rank, and after that, an onsite. The onsite had 4 interviews: one for system design, one for technical implementation, a coding/debugging session, and a behavioral question about a time you had to do something. The only bummer was they didn't give any feedback when they rejected me, just that I wasn't a fit.