GitLab Frontend Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

Two days before the interview, I was sent a Merge Request to review. It was a simple Vue 2 app that involved an API call, some data operations, and conditional UI rendering. I felt prepared for the interview and performed well. Similar to what's mentioned for other FE interviews on Glassdoor, I'm not sure what went wrong. I did improve the app's performance by implementing data caching in the component and reducing unnecessary API calls. The HTML and CSS were decent, using Flexbox for styling and media queries for the mobile layout. What was surprising is that the interviewer didn't ask any questions while I was coding. I mostly explained my decisions and reasoning as I coded. I'm unsure of their selection criteria for the tech interview, but it's a good approach compared to the leet code style. However, I didn't like that the interviewer didn't ask any questions, and I would appreciate feedback from Gitlab. I've included the questions they asked during the interview.

I totally forgot I applied, but then a recruiter hit me up about a month later for a 30-minute Zoom chat where we talked about my background and job search. After that, it moved to a technical stage where I had to do a Merge Request review on my own time using Gitlab. I had to review it and suggest changes, with the idea of implementing them in a live coding session. It was in VueJS with Jest unit tests. The live coding was 90 minutes and I thought it went well because I was prepared and understood the issue. But I guess I focused too much on solving the issue and passing tests, and didn't really nail the live coding part, which was a surprise. They said I need more JavaScript and CSS experience and suggested looking into performance testing for VueJS apps. I think I might have missed something with potential infinite loops in the While loop or maybe how I handled the API calls – not calling it repeatedly when it could be called once. For the CSS part, I was a bit lost on what they meant, although I did fix the mobile view to match the mockups using media queries. Overall, the interview process was pretty straightforward, but I'm not happy with the outcome. These 'gotchas' in interviews lately feel like they're testing if you can guess some secret formula rather than real skills in a short time.

So, you get a recruiter call first, which is pretty standard. Then, there's this initial screening interview where you talk about your skills and what makes you tick, kinda typical stuff. After that, they hit you with a technical assessment. You get a merge request to look over (it's HTML, CSS, Vue for this role) and you do it on your own time. Then, you hop on a live coding session where you actually implement the changes you suggested. It was actually super chill and the interviewers were really cool about it, even though I was a bit nervous. Unfortunately, their front-end roles filled up before they could place me. But the recruiters really tried to help me out, looking for other spots and telling me to check back in the future. It felt like they genuinely cared about my time and skills. It was awesome! Super professional and they kept me in the loop the whole time.