The interview process consisted of three stages: an algorithmic task, an HR screening, and a technical interview with a take-home assignment. The earlier stages were straightforward, but the take-home assignment became the main evaluation point. The feedback focused largely on aspects like human-friendly copywriting and UX polish (for example empty-state messaging), while my implementation prioritized correctness, security, and safe SQL handling. Given the time constraints of the assignment, I intentionally focused on meeting the stated functional requirements and ensuring safe query construction rather than polishing UX details. The assignment also started from a deliberately poorly written PHP codebase that candidates are expected to understand and work with. While I understand the intention may be to test the ability to navigate unfamiliar legacy code, the overall exercise felt less like solving a clearly defined engineering problem and more like trying to guess unstated expectations about priorities. To be fair, the assignment was paid and the payment was processed as promised. However, the amount of time required to go through the code and complete the task was still quite significant.

Applied at LinkedIn, did an "async" interview process, which was JavaScript with a weird in-house built service. I was not told what the next steps would have been. I was very frustrated and irritated after their response to the async interview, but after reading here, it makes a bit more sense. I did the Excel task, but when it was ~4 minutes left, I found out ZA doesn't work. I mentioned in the recording that my code is wrong, but it would work if I did a for loop and went through each character, etc. However, in their response, they simply state that it was incorrect and explain that it needs to handle ZA and provide the correct number. And I got confused. That's what I said in the end? So the recording is not taken into account at all. I answered the email asking if the end was listened to because the answer was so not correct if they had, and the answer was yes, we have "reviewed it carefully". I do not believe them. Thanks for missing working there.