🚀 My Viacom18 Frontend Engineer Interview Experience | 44 LPA | SDE-2 Frontend

Overview

This document details a frontend engineer's interview experience with Viacom18 for an SDE-2 Frontend position. The candidate, possessing five years of industry experience, underwent two rounds of interviews. The initial round focused heavily on CSS and HTML, while the second included DSA and some frontend concepts. Despite answering all questions correctly and demonstrating relevant experience, the candidate was ultimately rejected.

Interview Rounds

Round 1:

• The initial interview was tagged as DSA-focused but primarily assessed CSS and HTML knowledge.
• The candidate perceived a misalignment between the interview focus and the broader skillset required for modern frontend engineering, including JavaScript problem-solving, React patterns, performance optimization, and system design for frontend.
• Despite concerns, the candidate received a rejection email but secured a second interview after providing feedback to the recruiter.

Round 2:

• This round included discussions on performance, JavaScript, and DSA.
• Questions included:
  • Basic performance optimization strategies in frontend.
  • Reasons for preferring Client-Side Rendering (CSR) over Server-Side Rendering (SSR).
  • The use of the new operator in JavaScript and its behavior with arrow functions.
  • Problem-solving: Find the nth largest number in an array.
  • Problem-solving: Check if two strings are anagrams.
• The candidate answered all questions correctly, explained trade-offs, shared React use cases, and solved the DSA problems.
• Despite this, the candidate received a second rejection.

Key Takeaways

• The interview process may not always accurately reflect the demands of the role.
• There can be a disconnect between real-world skills and the emphasis on competitive coding patterns.
• An overemphasis on achieving the "optimal" solution instantly, without considering the candidate's approach and frontend thinking, can be detrimental.
• Feedback loops are not always present or effective.
• It is important to assess whether an interview process adequately evaluates the real-world challenges of frontend engineering. If not, it may not be a worthwhile pursuit.