It takes time but it was incredibly valuable and rewarding. First point of contact is a 30min call with recruiter. A time to share info about the job, company, and the next steps. Then a meeting with the hiring manager, to get to know each other and assess cultural fit. The third stage is a take home assessment, to build a simple app using front-end libraries (Instant Search) and whatever else you wish to use (back end APIs, Autocomplete etc). Also some practice questions to answer which are typical of problems you encounter everyday. The final stage is to meet with the recruiter, hiring manager, and people from the team/cross-teams to get feedback on your assessment and further assess cultural fit. Overall it took maybe 4-6 weeks and was the longest I'd encountered, but by the end of it I knew it was definitely right for me. Haven't regretted accepting the offer since!

The recruiter interviewing me showed up and did not turn her camera on. I asked if this was meant to be a camera off interview as the invite did not mention this (we have phone calls for that). She said that I was correct, and that it wasn't mentioned as a part of the Zoom invite, but she would be taking notes, looking off camera for questions, and had her camera off because she wanted to focus on my answers. Immediate red flag, but I decided to keep my camera on as I showed up (early) with it already active. Clearly she had other places to be. Despite this, I would say that the interview was going fine initially. We ran through the typical recruiter interview screening questions, which would include a synopsis of my professional history, what has me on the market, and what I understood about the product. Things took a turn when she asked me how I would “Troubleshoot an issue of a webpage.” out of nowhere, and was not mentioned in the "what to expect section of the interview packet sent via email. It was also a complete anti-pattern to the logistical questions I was being asked after going over my work history. To anyone with a functioning brain, this question is ALSO incomplete, so my follow up of course was, “Well, what’s wrong with the webpage specifically?” Do you know what this woman told me: “That’s all I can say.” I could actually hear her purse her lips when she said that. It was insulting. I told her that I wasn’t sure how to move forward with the question, because this didn’t provide a lot of information. I did my best to get more context for this hypothetical scenario by asking follow up questions: What specifically is wrong with the page? What should be there/what should it look like, and what are we seeing now? Typical expected vs. actual behavior, a line of questions that is standard when dealing with customers who can’t seem to find the words. "Good follow up question!" she said, and still wouldn't budge. It frustrated me a little, but I laughed it off and imposed a tangible issue just so that we had something to work with — such as a bad URL, if the URL was a page they were visiting or a domain they owned. And the conversation around this scenario was finally able to progress. After this, she was open to questions. The interview concluded with her telling me that she will be out for next two weeks to enjoy herself, and while she would get back to me at the end of day (she didn’t, shocker!), that someone would within the week. I received a generic rejection the next day. Algolia, are you guys okay over there? What are we doing?