Reaktor Frontend Engineer Interview Questions
& Process

The first interview was a standard recruiter call. The second interview involved a psychology test. They said there are no right or wrong answers, but I think they can really judge who you are without much basis or facts. I'm not sure they can really find the right fit with this process unless you give really bad answers or opinions. It's nice they care about who you are as a person, but it could be a trap. They want to hear negative stories about your past job or experiences to see if they can spot your weaknesses and make conclusions. For example, they asked: 'Tell me a task or something you were involved in where things went wrong?' I told them that a few years ago I overcomplicated a task, which probably happens to all developers at some point. I made it clear it was in the past and that now I always aim for the simplest, most efficient solution, but they might have misunderstood and thought I'm not efficient. They also asked, 'Tell me a period of time when you didn’t feel happy at your job?' I told them that in my current role, for about 2 months, not much work was coming in, which made me feel a bit bored. However, I always kept myself busy and even explained how. I also took a holiday during that time, which is probably the best you can expect from an employee; it's better to take time off when things are quiet than disappear when there's a lot to do. Who knows what conclusions they made from this answer. They also asked, 'Tell me something you did that got you excited like a kid?' Coincidentally, I had a story related to that, so I guess I answered this one 'right'. But it makes me wonder, what if you say, 'No, I haven't done anything exciting recently, I just went grocery shopping'? Would that be wrong? And why? I consider myself a positive, active person, but realistically, life isn't thrilling every day; you go through phases. I'm confident there are people who haven't done anything exciting in the last few weeks but still do a fantastic job, but you'd better have a cool story for this question, or they might draw the wrong conclusion. I tried to be myself during the call (as everyone should), but it's risky. You'd better play it safe, be political, and give the answer they more or less want to hear. Again, they want stories, and if you don't have interesting ones, you might need to make something up, otherwise, your chances of rejection are higher. It's a psychology game in the end.

First up was a 30 min call with the recruiter for a basic intro. After that, there was a weird interview where they mentioned that the person should be open to working on any technology like front-end, backend, DevOps, Mobile or embedded programming, basically wanting a whole IT department in one person. I decided not to continue as it was pointless and they should update their job postings because they are not looking for a front-end engineer but a software engineer who should be open to working on any tech stack to avoid confusion.

This was such a great interview process, really well organized but also super chill and friendly, I loved it! It had 4 chats: 1) A quick video chat to meet. 2) The vibe check where you share stories and examples. 3) A technical interview with 3 parts: skill mapping, a practical task, and code review. 4) The final chat about the offer. Each chat had time for your questions. The interviewers were really nice, funny, and laid back.