Smashing Boxes Interview Questions
& Process

Applied via LinkedIn and had an initial video call with the Hiring Manager to confirm interest. They were upfront about a current change in governance/org structure, which was good info for my decision. Then I was prompted to present a case study. After that, I interviewed with the COO to discuss the job, the organization, and my case study. Later, I had a chat with two designers and myself to talk shop. Finally, they extended an offer. While seeing offices and meeting people in person is nice, remote hiring is actually pretty sweet – makes planning the day much easier. Interviewing with SB struck a good balance between casual and serious, and they were transparent and friendly. I think this is an ideal tone for interviews.

So a recruiter reached out about a front end opening. We chatted via email a bit before having a call. On the call, they asked about my background and what excites me about tech. We also talked a lot about Smashing Boxes' culture and what it's like to work there. After that, I went in for a formal interview. I met the recruiter in person and then did a technical interview with a team lead. It was a bit nerve-wracking, but both the recruiter and lead were really nice and approachable. They were happy to answer all my questions thoroughly and made me feel pretty welcome. After the interview, the recruiter let me know I didn't quite have enough experience for the role but gave me some really helpful feedback on how to improve. I would've loved an offer, but honestly, it was one of the best interview experiences I've had.

I applied online. The interview experience wasn't great and gave me a poor impression of the company culture. The coding challenge was fairly average but long. After submitting the challenge, the feedback that they gave indicated that they're looking for more Senior level engineers. They do state this in the job requirements (3-10 years and 2 -3 years specificially with React or Angular). For someone that is fairly new to software engineering though, and is still learning alot, as indicated on my resume, I applied anyway. The feedback received was constructive and brutal in the style/tone. To not have a phone screen, be given a lengthy and extensive coding challenge (took me way over 5 hours to complete with several "things we look for"), at such an early stage in the interview process felt disrespectful of my time. The overall process felt impersonal, disorganized, and rushed (the recruiter forgot to send me a confirmation link and missed our phone screen, although she did apologize). It is super great that they give actual feedback and the turnaround is quick. However, overall the experience left me with a bad impression.

I went through two interviews here. The first was a general interview, and the second was a design presentation for a take-home design challenge. It seemed like a cool place to work. They're trying to build up their design team to handle more projects. The only downside was the slow responses from the hiring manager, but overall, the process was pretty straightforward and not too tough.