I applied through a recruiter. I interviewed at Rapid Ratings International (Dublin, Dublin) in Jun 2026
Interview
Was a simple conversation for the first stage, detailing my experience and going over the job specs, seeing if I was a good fit for the role. For the second, round I was met by the CTO and an architect, who each had a printed copy of my CV and how it could relate to the role. They highlighted specific sentences I had written and wanted me to explain almost every phrase that they saw. It was an intense grilling of my CV to see how well you did in my previous roles. There was no coding involved; it was more about them learning about me.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Give a previous example of migrating legacy code to a microservice-based system
I applied online. The process took 1 week. I interviewed at Rapid Ratings International (Dublin, Dublin) in Apr 2025
Interview
They have a very straightforward and pleasant interview process. I found everyone at Rapid ratings to be nice to deal with.
There was a 15 minute call with the HR manager discussing general experience.
A 30 minute teams call. This was a casual, but technical, run through of my experience with an architect. There were a few standard technical questions thrown in.
The final interview was 90 minutes in person with the hiring manager and another architect. This consisted of a 30 minute code challenge, and an hour of going through my experience in detail, with a whiteboard exercise to explain a project I had worked on.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
Talk through an application I had mentioned on my CV.
I applied online. The process took 3 weeks. I interviewed at Rapid Ratings International (Dublin, Dublin) in Dec 2024
Interview
I applied for the Snr UX Designer role because it seemed interesting, and the job description explicitly stated that prior experience in a similar domain was not required.
The process started with a screening call, which went smoothly. Next, a 4-hour design task followed where I was asked to design a few SaaS interfaces while using their incomplete design style guide, which lacked sufficient detail. For a 4-hour task, the requirements were rather intensive (and that was not ok).
After submitting the task, I presented it to a team of interviewers. Shortly after, I was invited for another interview with the same group. This time, the focus shifted to job-specific questions that only candidates with exact, relevant experience could confidently answer. While I drew on knowledge from other domains, it became evident that this wasn’t sufficient to meet their expectations.
The interview process felt unnecessarily stressful and disjointed. It became clear that the company was looking for someone with highly specific experience, contrary to what the job posting suggested.
Additionally, the order of the interview stages seemed counterproductive. Instead of assigning the design task upfront, it would have been more logical to conduct an initial interview to evaluate alignment in terms of chemistry, experience, and skills before investing time and effort into a design task.
Overall, the process suggested that the company lacks experience interviewing designers (hence, poor design maturity). A more structured and thoughtful approach would not only save candidates’ time but also reflect better on the company.
Interview questions [1]
Question 1
How would you design an interface with a 'to do' list?
How would you display notifications?