I applied online. I interviewed at SciChart (Cairo, Cairo Governorate) in May 2022
Interview
I received a call from a recruiter. We set up a date for a technical interview. A couple of days later, I interviewed the company technical lead. First, the position was senior but suddenly the lead person informed me it's just a developer which means they are seeking senior with a mediocre compensation package. The interviewer seemed not to be someone with an experience with Javascript. His questions were mainly from tech twitter. One of them is a loop with `var`. What is the expected output? The question of course related to hoisting in Javascript, when I tried to tell him how the output is different from "let" he seemed very unfamiliar with hoisting. Got more questions about how to chain promises. When I told him about `await` which solved the problem of chaining hell and went further into callbacks he also seemed unaware of the subject. Then he explained his background in Ruby on Rails. More questions about typescript compiler options, Name some. Also about the best utility in TS. In the end, he suddenly realized he is out of time and he still had some questions to fill and guess what, live coding. I asked for more time but he was "I have to go in 10 minutes". He was so unprepared, totally detached from Javascript, and showed poor time management.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Name some of the typescript compiler options.
Name some utility functions in typescript.
Re-arrange this chain of promises.
What's the output of for loop when there's a `var` inside.
Live coding: Three guys outside the KFC had to pay in cash. The prices are 25/50/75. Write a program for the cashier.
I applied in-person. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at SciChart (London, England)
Interview
- Introductory phone call
- 1 Hour technical interview
- Take-home task
- behavioral and expectations questions.
After I’ve passed all the technical stuff and they agreed on how good I was, they offered a very low compensation that were waaaaaaaaay below the average and the market salaries ( less than 9k USD/ year ), unbelievable! which’s for sure I declined. They said that maybe they’re mistaken and evaluated it incorrectly given that they’re hiring from middle-east and thought that this might be a good salary!
The CEO reached out then to negotiate through the email asking some behavioral questions about expectations , and then he with all the people I talked with through email, disappeared ( until writing this ) and didn’t even reply back to the emails.
This’s unprofessional and unexpected from such a company. I’d say that they need to care about the people, the same as they do care about the customers. And if you’re willing to end the process after all of the time spent in this, at least you need to inform the interviewee.
In the end, the company is doing great stuff, they were super friendly in the interviews, until the compensation phase, their work is affecting a lot of areas where you can have an impact on people, but they need to review their processes / attitude in hiring because this’s a global market, when you’re willing to hire, you need to offer a competitive compensation as long as the candidate have the experience you need, not based on where they live. And if it doesn’t fit you, respect the interviewee spent time, and inform them with your decisions.
