Submitted application and received a take-home assessment where I was to build a form that GETs from an API endpoint and sends a POST response back to it. Assessment takes about 5 hours, but I put a few more into polishing mine. After submitting the completed assessment I received an invite for an interview to walk through my submission. This first interview was half informational and half a walkthrough of my code. The interviewer was nice and knowledgeable. After this, I received a form from my recruiter asking for details about salary expectations, etc. and as well as an invite for a 4.5-hour long panel interview. Panel interview: //30-minutes//: Talk with engineering team lead. Mostly behavioral questions, some experience questions. //1-hour//: Engineering team. Whiteboarding session where I was to design a new desktop version of the app. Had one main interviewer and one shadower. The main interviewer seemed really bored and unprepared. I don't think he practiced any of this session beforehand. He seemed to have a "correct" design that he was looking for and micromanaged the entire design process trying to match it. He got bogged down in very minute details and we ended up wasting a lot of time course-correcting. We didn't get to designing half the app or to the other questions he was supposed to ask. We probably would have needed additional hour or so to complete the 4-page app at our current pace. //1-hour//: Engineering team. General web development knowledge session. Had one main interviewer and one shadower. No coding, just some general web development questions and experience questions. //30-minute break.// //30-minutes//: Interview with the Project Manager. The interviewer's role at the company and actual day-to-day relation with the engineering team is still unclear to me. Asked some experience-based software project planning questions. Seemed a bit unprepared. //30-minute break.// //30-minutes//: Talk with engineering team lead again. More behavioral questions and asked to provide feedback on the app. ======================= The experience was mostly ok, however, some of the interviewers being unprepared and the large time investment required for Fetch’s process leads to my overall negative review. (+) - The code walkthrough interviewer was knowledgeable and enthusiastic. - The turnaround time between interviews was fast. - The second engineering team interviewer was nice and attentive. - None of the questions were unfairly hard throughout the process. (-) - The main whiteboarding interviewer was not prepared and bogged down the session by micromanaging the entire design process. Really quite unfortunate as whiteboarding is so important to the interview and Fetch claims to provide a large amount of work autonomy. - The interview process requires a large time investment. Not great for anyone, but especially if you already have a job and need to take time off for the 4.5 hour long panel. - The coding assessment was sent to me before talking to any human at the company. This is always a red flag for me. Why should I invest hours designing an app for you if you won’t even spend 15-30 talking to me first? - The project manager seemed a bit unprepared.

During the interview, I introduced myself and shared my past experiences. I discussed my take-home assessment, answered coding and work-style questions, and engaged in a conversation to learn more about the company and its culture.