I applied in-person. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Tikal Knowledge (Tel Aviv-Yafo) in Nov 2024
Interview
1. Screening phone call - technical questions around 30 minutes
2. Live coding task - around 90 minutes
3. Home task - about 5 hours
4. Software architecture and optimization interview - around 45 minutes
I passed all these sessions with great success. After 24 hours they called and said that they don't need a Senior Front End Engineer anymore, but a full stack Developer. Very disappointing.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 2 weeks. I interviewed at Tikal Knowledge (Tel Aviv-Yafo) in July 2024
Interview
* Initial 30 minute phone call with HR
* One hour zoom with HR
* Two hour technical interview about JS, TS and React
* Home task with Rick & Morty API
* In-person CEO interview
I was eventually rejected due to a lack of experience with backend technologies even though this was a front-end position, which left me a little bit confused.
HR was very nice and communicative throughout the process but the outcome was very disappointing obviously and made me wish they would've been more straightforward with their needs in advance.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
React app with a counter that malfunctions due to lack of useEffect
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 5 days. I interviewed at Tikal Knowledge (Tel Aviv-Yafo) in Nov 2020
Interview
The process consisted of
1. phone interview with HR
2. home exercise
3. live coding with 2 interviewers
The home exercise:
This was an exercise to retrieve data from an external API with multiple endpoints and aggregate the responses on the client side.
They said the exercise should take "2 hours".
I dedicated exactly 2 hours and solved the exercise per their specifications.
I immediately thought a GraphQL solution would be the best way to solve the exercise and lucky for me (so I thought), there was one, which I used after some customization
I received a reply saying that I did not do the exercise according to their (hidden) expectations. Also, If I wanted to proceed I would have to redo the exercise in a specific way, without GraphQL.
They said my solution bypassed what they had really wanted to test.
I thought it was rude to demand another round of the exercise, especially since those expectations were not outlined in the exercise specifications, regarding which tools are allowed and which are not.
I asked if we could find a way to resolve the issue, such as for me to solve it during the next step (live coding). Anything to avoid having to spend more unpaid time simply because they were unclear and sloppy in drafting the specs.
They refused and said that unless I redo the home exercise the process is over.
Since I already spent 2 hours (unpaid) I decided to invest another 1-2 hours and implement a quick & dirty solution which fulfilled their expectations.
I got the feeling of being treated as a cheater. I suspect other people spend much more than the above mentioned "2 hours" on the exercise.
Then came the live coding interview which was a bad experience with 1 interviewer who was the silent "spectator" and another interviewer who basically just condescending and barked commands at me as if I was already working for him and he was enjoying being a mean boss.
I thought the whole experience to be very unprofessional & disrespectful of a candidates time.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
- fetch data from an external API
(addendum: use multiple API requests)
- display the result in a table
(do not use any tools without checking with them first to avoid any issues)