Trade Republic Frontend Interview Experience

Overview

The candidate participated in the interview process for a Senior Frontend Engineer, Web Platform role at Trade Republic. The process spanned 6-8 weeks and concluded with the candidate being selected for the position. However, the offer was ultimately declined due to a discrepancy in the compensation package.

Interview Rounds

The interview process included the following stages:

1. Initial Discussion with Senior/Staff Engineer: This round focused on the candidate's background, technical skills, and experience with tools and technologies relevant to frontend development, A/B testing, analytics, and performance measurement. The discussion centered around past projects, challenges, and solutions implemented.

2. Discussion with HR: This stage covered company information, compensation expectations, benefits, work-from-home/work-from-abroad policies, and vacation days. Compensation expectations were not clearly aligned during this stage.

3. In-Person Interview at Trade Republic Berlin:

   • Technical/White Board Interview: This involved a collaborative role-play scenario where the candidate guided a junior engineer in fixing bugs on a full-stack project using Vue.js and NodeJS. The candidate addressed CORS issues, real-time update problems involving WebSockets, and feature implementation requests related to user categories and stock lists. Table virtualization and on-demand loading strategies for performance were discussed.
   • Product Mindset Interview: This round presented a hypothetical on-call situation involving a core service returning a 503 error on the frontend. The candidate outlined their approach to investigating the issue, identifying potential causes (routing service problems), and collaborating with other incident responders.

4. Offer Discussion: The initial offer was below the candidate's current compensation. While a 10% increase was verbally agreed upon, the offer was later rescinded, and the original lower offer was reinstated, leading to the candidate's decision to decline.

Key Takeaways

• Compensation Alignment: Clearly aligning compensation expectations early in the interview process is crucial to avoid wasted time and effort for both the candidate and the company.
• Authenticity and Communication: The candidate's ability to communicate clearly, highlight challenges, and articulate their contributions were beneficial throughout the interview process.
• Technical Proficiency: The technical interview assessed the candidate's problem-solving skills, knowledge of frontend technologies (Vue.js, React), and ability to guide others. The candidate demonstrated familiarity with debugging common frontend issues like CORS and WebSocket implementation.
• Product Thinking: The product mindset interview evaluated the candidate's ability to approach and resolve real-world incident scenarios, demonstrating an understanding of system architecture and troubleshooting methodologies.