SDE-2 Frontend | Hiver | Interview Experience
Summary
I interviewed for an SDE-2 Frontend position at Hiver. After completing a mixed assessment and a very aggressive LLD round, I received a rejection.
Full Experience
Currently: SSE, 41 LPA fixed.
Expected: SDE 2, 42 LPA fixed.
I applied on the company website and received a callback. The recruiter was slightly rude and had a lot of questions to ask about the things I have worked on. Nevertheless, she told me that there will be 5 rounds:
- Assessment (1 hour expected)
- LLD
- HLD
- Hiring Manager
- HR
In the middle of the week she asked me to submit the assessment within 24 hours, I obliged.
Round 1 (Assessment)
- 10 MCQs: The MCQs were a mix of JS related questions and framework questions. One thing which was horrible was that the MCQs had questions for EVERY framework: Svelte, Vue, Astro but nothing on React, their own tech stack? Had a horrible time with those, I just marked whatever seemed most plausible to me.
- Modern JS questions like usage of structuredClone to replace deep cloning.
- A game: The 2nd part was a weird drag and drop based game which had 7 levels, to be completed within 7 minutes. It was like a character who can go on a fixed path and can lose the round if goes on a tile with a hazar, you need to skip that and move it to the end and win the round by giving it directions to move, creating separate packages with movement to call (like creating functions to call). Never seen this before, but easy enough.
- 2 DSA questions: Both easy level, one was based on stack, the other was string manipulation.
- 2 more questions: JS related questions, but quite easy.
Overall the assessment took more than 1 hour, but nevermind, I was moved to the LLD round the same day.
Round 2 (LLD)
This is where things went downhill. The interviewer was insanely rude, did no intro and was not interested in answering any of my questions that I had mid questions. He was not open to clarifying requriements, doubts or what was he looking for in the answers. One big issue that I felt, the interviewer had memorised answers and was not open to any other approach (even as minor as writing a for loop in a different way).
There were 7-8 rapid fire questions, all to be written down as perfectly functioning code, no discussions, no fundamentals check.
- CSS: Create 3 divs inside a parent div and give them 40 : 30 : 30 space. Follow ups were, adding a gap between them and not allowing them to leave the divs.
- CSS: Create 9 divs inside a parent div, remove their classnames and have them filled with alternate colors and take equal space inside the parent div.
- JS: Create a promise which logs something after 3 seconds. (The interviewer wanted the log to happen from outside the promise while resolve was inside setTimeout.)
- JS: Explain debounce and throttle and create a useDebounce hook.
- JS: What is deep clone? How can we do it? Create a polyfill. (I used JSON.stringify, structuredClone and tried to handle arrays and objects separately.)
- React: Given a search box and a list of people, the search box is calling an API on every character, apply debounce. The interviewer forbade using the useDebounce hook and wanted a manual debounce function.
Despite giving correct approaches, the interviewer was hostile and I received a rejection email.
I have given 20+ interviews in the past 4 months, just so that I can practise interviewing, both startups and medium‑big tech. This was the worst experience I have ever had. It gave me a feeling that Hiver has been hyping itself up with great social media jargon to attract people but the people are shallow, egoistic and are not open to other opinions or questions.
I am glad I could judge the company this early, I would not want to work in a place with people like this.
Interview Questions (6)
CSS layout with 40‑30‑30 distribution
Create three div elements inside a parent div and distribute their widths in the ratio 40 : 30 : 30. Follow‑up: add a gap between the child divs and prevent the children from escaping the parent container.
CSS grid of nine equally spaced divs with alternating colors
Create nine div elements inside a parent container, remove any class names from the children, make them occupy equal space, and fill them with alternating background colors.
Promise that logs after 3 seconds
Write a JavaScript Promise that resolves after 3 seconds using setTimeout. The log statement must be executed **outside** of the promise body, while the resolution occurs inside the setTimeout.
Implement debounce, throttle and a useDebounce hook
Explain the concepts of debounce and throttle. Then implement a custom React hook named useDebounce that debounces a value or function.
Deep‑clone polyfill in JavaScript
Describe what a deep clone is and implement a polyfill that can deep‑clone arbitrary JavaScript values, handling arrays and objects separately. The candidate used JSON.stringify, structuredClone, and attempted separate handling for arrays and objects.
React search box with manual debounce
Given a search input that calls an API on every keystroke, implement a debounce mechanism without using a pre‑made useDebounce hook. The candidate must create a custom debounce function and integrate it into the component, also remembering to use useMemo if needed.