I applied online. I interviewed at Hiive (Canada) in Apr 2026
Interview
I recently interviewed for a QA Engineer role at Hiive and wanted to share my experience.
The process included a technical assessment followed by a technical interview. The assessment involved building an automation solution using TypeScript and Playwright, including framework setup, test design, and validations.
I completed the assignment by creating a reusable automation framework and was able to explain my design decisions clearly during the interview.
However, I found the overall process lacked clarity in expectations and evaluation criteria. The strict requirement to use a specific tech stack (TypeScript + Playwright) made the assessment less flexible, especially for candidates with strong experience in other widely used tools. While I adapted to the required stack, I believe evaluating candidates more on problem-solving and framework design rather than tool preference would provide a better assessment.
Additionally, more transparency in feedback after the interview would have been helpful to understand the outcome.
I hope this feedback helps improve the experience for future candidates.
I went through five interviews — starting with the recruiter, then the hiring manager (twice), the CRO, and finally the CEO. There was also a take-home assignment that took several hours to complete.
The recruiter and hiring manager conversations went really well and gave me the impression that I was a strong fit for the role. Things shifted a bit when I met with the CRO — the interview felt rushed since he mentioned he only had 20 minutes of our scheduled 30. He asked about my background, but it wasn’t totally clear if he was evaluating me for the same position. Ironically, I later found out that he actually liked my background a lot and thought I could be a good fit.
The final interview was with the CEO. We started about 20 minutes late for a 30-minute slot, which I understood — CEOs are busy. During our chat, he mentioned that he didn’t really see my sales background as a match for what they needed but said he’d consider bringing me on at a lower title and pay to “prove myself” since it was a meritocratic, high-intensity sales culture — almost “Wolf of Wall Street” style.
After that conversation, I never heard back from anyone on the team. No follow-up, no closure. It was disappointing given the amount of time and effort that went into the process. Overall, it would’ve been nice to have better communication and alignment earlier on — especially if the CEO already had a different idea of what they were looking for.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Describe your experience with high-volume outbound sales and building leads? (Or something along those lines).
I applied online. I interviewed at Hiive (Canada) in Sept 2025
Interview
Had an 10-15min initial interview call with the recruiter, was told would get back to me in two days and was never heard again. Recruiter seems to be asking questions like checking boxes - did not introduce the company at the beginning but went straight to asking questions. Only asked around 3-4 questions