[Job Application: Full Stack Engineer] [Interview: 2021-09-16 +0200] - John Smith

Challenges

Before the Interview

[ ] Hiring Team: Create Highfive link for the candidate to connect: /firstnamelastname
[ ] Hiring Team: Email candidate details and remote onsite guide 2 days before
[ ] Hiring Team: Send out calendar invite to all@, and include the interviewee's gist/phone notes/resume as well as the engineering guidelines as soon as it is scheduled
[ ] Hiring Team: Email schedule out to all@ at least 24 hours before
[ ] Interview Lead: Clear the PHP db for the drink order challenge (or the ops_craigslist table for infra candidates) - See https://stackoverflow.com/c/expensify/a/5225/21
[ ] Interview Lead: Ensure you have a workload where you are able to be interrupted constantly and clear your schedule for that day

Day of the Interview - Hiring Team

[ ] Post the schedule, Highfive link and @ the assigned graduates in the candidate chat channel
[ ] Double check your email to make sure th candidate hasn't reached out with any technical problems

Day of the Interview - Interview Lead

[ ] Post a message in #social on slack to let everybody know what #candidate-chat to join
[ ] Read the Interview Guidelines
[ ] 5 minutes before the start time, join the interview Highfive and wait for the candidate to join
[ ] Introduce yourself and your role
[ ] Walk them through the schedule for the day and the different challenges:

There'll be a JS challenge, a 1:1, a break for lunch, a PHP challenge, two 1:1s and a whiteboard challenge
[ ] Ask candidate to share their screen

Please share your screen while you work on the challenge. It's meant to be a collaborative process. Everyone in the entire company can follow the challenges and the reviews, so don't be surprised if random people jump in, most people like to listen for the questions you ask or how you work, and maybe checking your screen occasionally. As we said before, its an incredibly collaborative environment and we are all rooting for you!
[ ] Let the candidate know that between challenges, we review their solution internally and you can wait in the Highfive room until we connect again
[ ] Give an overview of the locker challenge

The last challenge of the day is one that is more of a tradition at Expensify. Every full time hire has completed it - from the accountants, to the sales team, to the office manager. We'll guide you through it so no need to build up any anxiety, but just wanted to let you know it's how we end the day.
[ ] Emphasize they can ask questions throughout the day, and at the end of the day

At the end of the day you'll have an opportunity to ask questions to all the team members who are connected to the Highfive
[ ] Let them know this is an open book challenge meant to mimic how we actually work on our day to day

You have complete access to the internet during your challenges (just like when you're actually working here)
[ ] Let the candidate know that we'll give them feedback early and often and that if it's not working out we'll let them know and won't drag them along
[ ] And that we sleep on hiring decisions so the earliest they'll about us making an offer is tomorrow
[ ] Given them an opportunity to ask questions before getting started

Starting Challenge #1 - Interview Lead

A brilliant iOS app for timing the challenges is called "Timeglass" and lets you set up multi-step timers
[ ] Send candidate an email with the challenge copy/pasted into it (find the challenges above)
[ ] Confirm their environment can actually solve the challenge before you start the timer
[ ] Make sure they are sharing the screen with you (all applications). If they have multiple monitors, ask them to do everything on one screen.
- If they get super stuck and it'll take some minutes to unwind, you can pause the timer, announce in #candidate-chat, and pair-program for a few minutes with them to unstick them.
- Resume the timer and give a detailed account in #candidate-chat.
[ ] Start the challenge and notify #candidate-chat, including a link to the challenge
[ ] Do a 15 minute check in and ask questions for where they are, and post the questions they asked or tips you did in #candidate-chat
[ ] Do the same at the 30 minute mark
[ ] Do the same at the 45 minute mark
[ ] At 55 minutes - give them a 5 minute warning and give them tips to add comments, stub out code, and get it to a runnable state. Also mention not to delete code, but comment it out instead (if it's code that isn't going to be used)

Reviewing Challenge #1 -Interview Lead

[ ] @here the channel to let people know review is about to start so they can join the candidate Highfive
[ ] Ask candidate to share their screen with us to review the challenge
[ ] Send the link to #candidate-chat
[ ] Create a Secret Gist with the code and send it out to #candidate-chat
[ ] Add a comment to the candidate's PR with the link to the gist (so we have a historical record of it). Be sure to do this for both challenges.
[ ] Throughout the interview, add the proper labels to their PR to indicate which option they used for the JS grid (css/div/table), how they tested their PHP requests (postman/curl/etc), and the outcome of the interview (cut/offer/hired)
[ ] Have the candidate go through the challenge:
1. Show us the functionality
2. Show us the code and explain their thought processes / their blockers
3. After reading the instructions, how far did you think you’d get?
4. What was the most difficult part?
5. Questions from the room to them"
[ ] Once the questions are over, tell the candidate we will be reviewing the challenge with the team, and we will connect to the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname) after with feedback and next steps

Discuss Challenge #1 - Interview Lead

[ ] Make sure everyone is out of the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname) and move to /commons
[ ] Identify concerns and determine how to disclose those concerns to the candidate
[ ] If we're not moving forward, jump back on /commons to let the candidate know and provide them with feedback. If we're moving forward, continue following the checklist

Challenge #1 Recap with Candidate and 1st 1:1

[ ] Connect to the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname)
[ ] Share the feebdack with the candidate, ask any questions they had about the challenge, and discuss with them any concerns from the challenge
[ ] Do the 1:1 - it will be focused on feedback from the challenge / advancing more into the challenge
[ ] If everything goes well, tell the candidate they have 30 minutes for a break and they can have lunch. Tell them they should connect to the Highfive (/firstnamelastname) 30 minutes from that time

Starting Challenge #2 - Interview Lead

[ ] Send candidate an email with the challenge copy/pasted into it (find the challenges above)
[ ] Confirm their environment can actually solve the challenge before you start the timer
[ ] Make sure they are sharing the screen with you
[ ] Start the challenge and notify #candidate-chat, including a link to the challenge
[ ] Do a 15 minute check in and ask questions for where they are, and post the questions they asked or tips you did in #candidate-chat
[ ] Do the same at the 30 minute mark
[ ] Do the same at the 45 minute mark
[ ] At 55 minutes - give them a 5 minute warning and give them tips to add comments, stub out code, and get it to a runnable state. Also mention not to delete code, but comment it out instead (if it's code that isn't going to be used)

Reviewing Challenge #2 - Interview Lead

[ ] @here the channel to let people know review is about to start so they can join the candidate Highfive
[ ] Ask candidate to share their screen with us to review the challenge
[ ] Send the link to #candidate-chat
[ ] Create a Secret Gist with the code and send it out to #candidate-chat
[ ] Add a comment to the PR with the link to the gist
[ ] Add the proper labels to their PR to indicate which option they used for the JS grid (css/div/table), how they tested their PHP requests (postman/curl/etc), and the outcome of the interview (cut/offer/hired)
[ ] Have the candidate go through the challenge:
1. Show us the functionality
2. Show us the code and explain their thought processes / their blockers
3. After reading the instructions, how far did you think you’d get?
4. What was the most difficult part?
5. Questions from the room to them"
[ ] Once the questions are over, tell the candidate we will be reviewing the challenge with the team, and we will connect to the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname) after with feedback and next steps

Discuss Challenge #2 - Interview Lead

[ ] Make sure everyone is out of the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname) and move to /commons
[ ] Identify concerns and determine how to disclose those concerns to the candidate
[ ] If we're not moving forward, jump back on /commons to let the candidate know and provide them with feedback. If we're moving forward, continue following the checklist

Challenge #2 Recap with Candidate, 2nd and 3rd 1:1s

[ ] Connect to the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname)
[ ] Share the feebdack with the candidate, ask any questions they had about the challenge, and discuss with them any concerns from the challenge
[ ] Do the 1:1s

The Locker Challenge

[ ] Run the locker challenge
[ ] Give the candidate the opportunity to ask anybody any questions. Be sure to ask them to direct their question at a specific person and not ask the whole room
[ ] Wrap up the questions, move on to the final review before David's chat

Discuss Locker Challenge - Interview Lead

[ ] Make sure everyone is out of the candidate Highfive (/firstnamelastname) and move to /commons
[ ] Identify concerns and determine how to disclose those concerns to the candidate
[ ] If we're not moving forward, jump back on /commons to let the candidate know and provide them with feedback. If we're moving forward, continue following the checklist

Wrap it up

[ ] Work with the hiring team to schedule the call with David
[ ] If we decide not to move forward and the candidate is still around, jump back to the candidate Highfive, let them know and give them feedback
[ ] Otherwise, be sure to add the links to gists and corresponding labels to the candidate's PR, and let the hiring team member take it from here

The Next Day - Hiring Team

[ ] If the David Chat goes well get the final vote in the candidate chat channel
[ ] If we vote to move forward with an offer, follow this SO for next steps

johncschuster / TestingRepo

[Job Application: Full Stack Engineer] [Interview: 2021-09-16 +0200] - John Smith #9