My Tekion Frontend Interview Experience | 72 LPA | Staff Engineer

Overview

The candidate participated in a frontend interview at Tekion, a company specializing in cloud-native technology for automotive retail. The interview process commenced with a machine coding round, followed by a technical discussion. The role was for a Staff Engineer position.

Interview Rounds

Round 1: Machine Coding - Event Emitter System in React

The first round was a machine coding assessment. Approximately 50 candidates were present. The task involved designing and implementing an event emitter system for a React application, adhering to the following requirements:

• Event Emitter Module:
  • on(eventName, callback): Subscribe to an event.
  • off(eventName, callback): Unsubscribe from an event.
  • emit(eventName, payload): Emit an event with an optional payload to registered listeners.
• Custom React Hook (useEvent):
  • Subscribe to a specific event on component mount.
  • Automatically unsubscribe on component unmount.
  • Invoke the provided callback when the event is emitted.
• Demonstration:
  • Create two React components: one emitting an event with a payload, and another listening for the event and updating its UI.
• Considerations:
  • Preventing memory leaks through proper subscription cleanup.
  • Handling cases with no listeners or invalid payloads.
  • Ensuring robustness if event listeners throw errors.

The candidate used create-react-app to scaffold the project and developed a solution addressing the problem statement.

Round 2: Technical Discussion

Following the machine coding round, the candidate participated in a brief 15-minute technical discussion. This involved an introduction, a code walkthrough of the event emitter implementation, and follow-up questions. One question explored the dynamic instantiation of the emitter. The interviewer expressed reservations regarding the candidate's responses. The candidate stated their lack of prior practical experience with event emitters.

Final Verdict

The candidate was informed shortly after the technical discussion that the feedback was not positive, resulting in the termination of the interview process.

Key Takeaways

• The interview process heavily emphasized practical coding skills, specifically related to event-driven architecture in React.
• A strong understanding of React hooks and event handling is crucial for frontend roles at Tekion.
• The ability to articulate design choices and address potential edge cases is essential during the technical discussion.
• Prior experience with specific patterns, while not always mandatory, can significantly influence the outcome of the interview. Although the candidate had no prior experience with event emitters, practical knowledge would have likely improved the discussion.