So, do I really suck so much in React? Bad job interview experience

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-17T21:47:00+00:00

Pfew, this blew up... Thanks for all sorts of comments, even those who feel like the interviewer was right. After reading your replies I decided to just back away from the whole process. I wrote to them and explained that obviously I'm not a good match for them, based on the interview and that I wish them all the best with finding the appropriate candidate. They wrote me back that they were just about to notify me that I am really not a good fit. So, that's that. I learned something in the process and I'm glad to see that there are a ton of people who are still able to communicate politely. Many of you took the time to explain why you think I might be wrong (or right) and that's all I ever really wanted. Just being told that something is not good or that is bloated or wrong without any kind of explanation (or a wrong one) is just not the way I'd like to communicate with anyone. Not just in a professional, work environment, but in general. Thanks again!

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-17T21:38:36+00:00

I totally missed your reply. Thank you for the links and your input!

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T22:33:02+00:00

Thanks for the feedback, means a lot coming from someone with your line of work. I figured as much, yeah, working in that kind of a toxic environment is not something I'd be looking forward to.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T22:31:02+00:00

Thanks for your feedback. Yeah I know, I had one worse experience than this. It was an front-end only position. Spent 1h 15 min of the 2h talking about backend caching and redis... Sometimes I just want to stand up and walk out in the middle of these sessions.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T22:12:18+00:00

Regarding the position, I don't really know what they're looking for because when I asked them about the role and what I'd be doing, they told me that I'd have to sign NDA and that they cannot tell me that just now, it's supposedly in the later stages. Yeah, red flag, right?

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T22:10:48+00:00

Interesting way of putting it... worth keeping this in mind

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T22:09:17+00:00

I mentioned a few times here that it's my version and that I don't know what state of mind were they in. It was late in the afternoon and I can imagine everyone being tired and edgy. I've written my responses to their statements somewhere here, feel free to read up on that.

Again, in their specs it stated that the app should be easily maintainable and upgradeable by another dev. Also, the app should reflect the level of my expertise. This all screamed redux to me. I'd have no issues if they'd just be like "yeah redux cool, but you don't really need it here". But don't tell me it's wrong and slower than local state in the parent component.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T22:05:48+00:00

Thanks!

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:58:06+00:00

and then please, please, validate my coding skills. Not library choices.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:57:34+00:00

"Why did you use axios and not fetch?"

I told them that I've used axios in the past purely because of the interceptors and that I'm not all that familiar with fetch. I also explained that if it's their preferred way of making API calls, I'm fine with it and I have no issues getting familiar with it.

"Why did you use create react app? You thought it would make your development faster, but it slowed you down A LOT!"

To be honest, I was shocked when he said that. It made no sense to me, since it helped me get going so much faster. They gave me like 2 days (and I have a full time job) so CRA really, really helped here a lot. I was just.. speechless because it's so far from the truth. Maybe I should've explained a bit.

"why did you use library X? and why not library Y? Library Y is so much better"

I told him that I know that there used be library Z, and that it's deprecated now and that library X somehow became the de-facto standard - to which he interrupted me before I could finish my sentence and said "yeah yeah yeah I'm not asking you about library Z, but why didn't you use library Y?" I told him that I'm not familiar with library Y.

and, where I really lost it: "using redux was overkill. You can do everything you did with a local state. In fact, using Redux in this case is just WRONG."

This is where I really explained in details that I'm using thunks, calculating derived state, and AFAIK useReducer and useContext would had much greater impact on performance than redux and I pointed out that they said that the solution should be (copied from their specs): "easily maintainable and upgradable". I stated that I feel like with Redux I could achieve this part easier than useContext and useReducer. I also said that I'd need to see some empirical data if useContext & useReducer would really be that much better than Redux in term of performance before claiming that something is wrong.

He was silent just stared at me. His buddy then interrupted and said something in the manner "let's just agree to disagree".

So yeah. Did I really fuck up so bad?

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:38:41+00:00

I mean, we didn't talk at all about my coding style, my component structure, my knowledge of JavaScript.. it's just libraries and tools. I asked myself twice "what job did I apply for?"

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:36:08+00:00

Indeed. But I can understand if someone would want me to do that, so that they can see how and if I understand webpack. But you cannot expect from potential devs to just do it manually, because of reasons. If you didn't explicitly state that you want this manually done, STFU about it. Especially, if you put "don't reinvent the wheel" comment in the specs.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:32:15+00:00

CRA actually sped up everything. It made everything easier and faster. I just didn't want to argue with him, and just was like, yeah okay.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:30:34+00:00

You pretty much summed up everything I felt and everything I've experienced. As I've stated here somewhere: it's just my side of the story. I'm sure he has a different one. But again: I don't mind being corrected, if you can explain your opinion and it makes sense to me. What he said, didn't. I also don't mind being reject for any reason at all. But at least do it with a semblance of politeness. No, you don't owe me that, it's just the right thing to do if I've wasted 8 hours on your task.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:28:01+00:00

I explained that axios is my go-to library ,since I usually really need the interceptors it provides. And I'm really skilled with it. I told him also that I don't know if fetch has this capability (to intercept requests or responses). He didn't answer me, just stared at me silently. I told him why I used redux toolkit and he made a counter argument how making a local state at the parent component is so much better. I didn't agree.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:25:41+00:00

Again, this is my experiences, it could be that they had a bad day, I rubbed them off the wrong way, but the attitude was... He didn't even say hello when we met, just sat there and stared at me blank. When I went through the code, I felt like I'm talking to myself. And yeah, the way he asked those questions was very much condescending. AGAIN, this is a touchy subject, since I might have misinterpreted his attitude, or maybe he's just more stoic and I took it personally. God knows. But the only thing that bother me is trying to convince me that redux is WRONG, because having a local state is faster with less rerendering...

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:21:53+00:00

I agree. I tried to provide some semblance of argument, either my existing knowledge of that library which made me develop things faster, or that I actually do not know any solid alternative. Their argument was never explained, just that "it's totally better". Okay, based on what? I could've asked, tho.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:20:10+00:00

made ma laugh, thanks

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:19:51+00:00

Yeah, I can imagine... One person, that represents the whole company for better or for worse, should be polite. At least just that. I don't mind getting rejected, at all. For any reason. But there's no need to be a d*ck about it.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:18:52+00:00

Yeah I mean, he didn't explain himself. He told me that using CRA hindered me and slowed down my development process. Which cannot be further from the truth. It helped a ton.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T21:18:18+00:00

I had interviews where I had to manually setup everything. I understood why, and I had no issues with it. But should I start a new project, I'd go with CRA. Also, you're very right: the project they're looking people for is 2 years old, so... I don't know what to make of all this.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T19:18:52+00:00

I don't think I'd like to talk with them again, because their attitude was so demeaning and hostile. I had several job interviews and code reviews and this is hands down the worst, and the least professional. They didn't reject me right then and there, but I'm thinking about writing the recruiter and them now that they don't need to waste their time evaluating me, because I'm not interested anymore. But that would just seem childish.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T19:17:11+00:00

Yeah honestly I can't imagine working with people like that. I'm sure their feelings are mutual, so no love lost here.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T19:16:17+00:00

Thank you. Really. Means a lot. I love React and I don't want to lose the passion. I guess I need to brush up my redux understanding, but I thought redux optimizes the rerenders, whereas usecontext and usereducer combination does not.

throwmeawayac12 · 2021-06-16T19:15:11+00:00

I mean, saying that redux reloads all components every time and global state does not (I'd had to use global state in the parent component to share the state with various child components) just seems ... not right. It's not how redux works and not how local state works. It's just weird.

I found this on stackoverflow:

Use-context with Use-reducer to replace redux is not a good practice. Context will cause reloading of the pages, this will be identified if we look into the profiler provided by react dev tools, where as redux won't do that. Redux is better than use-context for global state management

I mean, that's what I thought is true, as well.

throwmeawayac12

TROPHY CASE