I applied online and was given a time-bound (60 mins) online coding challenge. I use Mac and have a habit of using Safari. I hit on the link to take up the test. The challenge was the online hacker rank challenge. I logged in and started reading the question. It was a real world scenario based challenge where I had to correct few things to make things work using the online IDE. I soon found the IDE wasn't too slow and wasn't clickable. I then decide to download the git repo and work locally but nothing seems to work. There was an access rights error. At this point I had already lost 35mins of my challenge. I thought emailing the HR and letting her know that I was having trouble but found that the email had a no-reply id and that was the dead end.
I hopped to Chrome and was trying to login which was not happening, I don't know why! After 5 mins of continuous attempt I could finally login in to chrome and everything seems to work just fine! I did what I could do in those 15mins! After the challenge, I gave a clear feedback to hacker rank about the problems I faced and the need to support safari. I then searched HR on linkedIn and send her a message with all the screenshot explaining the problem I went through the test but no reply!
Please mention in the email if the link has to be opened in Chrome!
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Etsy in Feb 2019
Interview
Was given initially debugging test similar to others posting here on glassdoor, though mine was in Node and Express with chai as the test runner. I definitely give props for Etsy mirroring a real on the job experience with this debugging test (it mirrored my experience exactly with Scala and Angular) and not asking stupid brain teaser questions like most companies which usually have no correlation to how you might do on the job, you can tell with this initial HackerRank that Etsy wants real developers, and not computer scientists. However, my main concern is the time limit. With candidates not being used to this IDE, I would imagine most people who fix all bugs and pass the tests are candidates who are directly familiar with the language being used for the test or are candidates who barely make the 1 hour cutoff. This is contradictory to the fact that for the job which I applied, there were no specific language requirements. While I don't doubt my capabilities and really anyone who's at least held full stack internship or role in the past to successfully complete this debugging test, I would advise Etsy to either:
1. Bump the allotted time by at min of 10 mins to give a little leeway for candidates to get used to the IDE given on HackerRank
2. Or put more specific languages on the job requirements.
I think I'm completely valid on my arguments here speaking as someone who has full time job experience contributing to all parts of the stack in prior jobs and not knowing the languages in the stack when starting. Drawing on my experiences on unknown stacks, I'd say between 70 - 90 minutes are needed.
Nevertheless, I directly applaud Etsy for not asking silly brain teaser questions.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
A debugging test with very specific tasks involved. If you've had a full stack role before, this should be very straight forward. Just be forewarned on getting used to the IDE and some limitations you might come across.
I applied through an employee referral. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Etsy (Brooklyn, NY) in Feb 2019
Interview
I submitted a custom cover letter and my resume with an employee referral. Approximately 10 days later, I received a Hackerrank where I had to work with existing code. I had 1 hour to complete it.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Had to fix issues within the application provided. The challenge was TDD.