Swipe YC 21 Interview Experience - Frontend Developer Intern
Summary
I completed a frontend assignment and then had a technical interview with Swipe where I discussed my React/Redux implementation and solved a feature-based coding problem. Despite a positive interaction, I ultimately did not receive an offer.
Full Experience
I reached out to the recruiter via LinkedIn in October, which initiated my interview process. My resume was well-received, and I was given a Frontend Assignment to complete within a specific deadline.
Assignment Submission: The assignment tasked me with enhancing an existing React-based invoice application by integrating Redux and adding more features. I managed to submit it well before the deadline.
About a week after my submission, I received a call from HR to schedule my Technical Interview, which was set for the very next day.
Technical Interview: During the interview, I was asked to explain the features I had implemented using Redux in the assignment, which I thoroughly elaborated on. An additional question I was posed was to "Implement copy to a new invoice from existing invoice functionality."
My approach to this problem was: When a user presses the 'copy invoice' button, they would be redirected to the /new route, but with a ?id=x parameter appended. I explained that I would implement a useEffect hook to check for the presence of this id parameter. If present, it would fetch the invoice with that particular id from the Redux store and use it to pre-populate the new invoice data. Otherwise, if the parameter was not present, the route would simply lead to a blank new invoice form.
The interviewer seemed quite impressed with my approach, my overall profile, previous internships, and projects. We also had some healthy discussions about Functional versus Class-based components and other technical topics. I left the interview feeling very confident about securing the internship.
However, a week went by, and I heard nothing. I decided to call the HR representative, who promised to give me an update by that evening. Unfortunately, I never received a response. Some days later, I checked their LinkedIn page and discovered that they had already hired other interns. I am still unsure what went wrong or where I might have faltered in the process.
Interview Questions (1)
The interviewer asked me to implement the functionality to copy an existing invoice to a new invoice. This typically involves taking the data from a selected existing invoice and using it to pre-populate the fields for a new invoice form, allowing for quick duplication and modification.