Codesmith Interview Questions

Like other reviewers have mentioned, the interview process asks for exorbitant amounts of time from candidates. After a long phone screen, I was asked to complete a take-home assignment that took a few hours of my time. Then, I was asked to participate in an interview that included 3 separate 30 minute interviews, and was asked to prepare a presentation to give after the 3 interviews had been completed (for a total of 2 hours). Before attending the interview, I was asked to attend a Codesmith workshop - they don't require you to attend the whole thing. The three interviews were back to back with no breaks until the presentation, and some questions were repeated in the phone screen and the interview. You are given very limited time to ask questions of each interviewer, as their questions took up about 28 minutes of the 30 minute time slot. Overall, I had a positive impression of the culture and values of Codesmith and the employees, but I think that the interview process really asked too much of candidates, especially early on in the interview process. I strongly believe that a presentation should only be asked of finalists, and that the 3 separate interviews could easily be combined into one panel interview. If I had been asked to continue in the interview process, I would have had one additional interview (to summarize, that would be one phone screen, a take home assignment, three 30 minute interviews, a 10-15 minute presentation, time for Q&A, and one additional interview).

First round: recruiter interview, casual easy-going Second round: interview with a member of the leadership team (I got marketing). She was reading off a list of preprepared questions. Seemed a little negative about her team. I was ghosted. No response to the interview or my follow-up email one week later, unprofessional in my opinion. Wouldn’t interview here again.

I made it through many rounds of evaluation and was asked the same questions over and over and over again by new faces. After a while it felt like I wasn't being evaluated for my qualifications, but rather that I was being personally judged for "culture" fit. I was asked questions that I felt uncomfortable responding to, and also expected to work on an unpaid extended take home assignment for what was an entry level role. The people that I talked to believed strongly in the company's mission, but it was disappointing to feel like my time was being wasted. It felt like I found a concerning new red flag every time I talked to someone. The whole experience felt awkward and weird.

The interview process started off positively for me, but turned negative. As others have described, it is a very lengthy and involved interview process (about 5 weeks from when I first applied to when I received a decision). It started with an initial phone call and take home assignment with 3 behavior based questions. I could see how important culture was based on the first conversation and really felt like my values aligned with the company's' so I didn't mind the homework. I was then asked to attend a Codesmith workshop and do an "onsite" interview, including speaking with 3 different staff members (30 min. each), as well as preparing a 15min. presentation to give to the programs team. One of the interviewers rubbed me the wrong way from the start with her tone and line of questions. By the time we got to the presentation, I could tell she was over it and just trying to rush things along. I invested a huge amount of time into the interview process and ultimately felt like the different tasks I did were not really factored in. Based on the feedback I received, it seemed the decision came down to the one interviewer (She was the only one who asked a question that even hinted at what the feedback described). It's always disappointing to not get an offer, but in this case I just felt disrespected.

Very lengthy process. Phone screening, followed by a take home assignment that took me about 6 hours total, followed by attending one of their virtual classes for about 3 hours, followed by an on-site interview of at least 2 hours. I normally withdraw applications when asked to complete any type of take-home assignment, but I was honestly impressed with Codesmith after my first phone interview and doing research on their mission, and had a lot of ideas on how I could grow their community engagement based on what I saw, so I was very interested in working for them. During the on-site, I spoke with three people individually for a half hour each, then with the group where I presented my take home assignment. I felt extremely rushed during the entire interview process; many of the same questions were asked, so I'm not sure why they couldn't all three just interview me all together. One interviewer clearly felt rushed as well, and would constantly interrupt my answers. One of their questions was about the qualities I brought to a team; as I was answering, they interrupted me to tell me they only wanted one-word adjectives, not examples/descriptions. Okay, I'm a leader, responsible, timely ... couldn't anyone say these things? Why wouldn't you want examples? Zero time for questions at any point, even though I had several I really wished I could have asked. Just the "vibe" felt rushed and weird for the entire interview; I got the impression that they really weren't interested in me, but were perhaps interviewing me to fill some kind of quota. It was really disappointing to invest so much time in an interview process to get the feeling the entire interview like they were really ready to go to lunch. I should have gone with my first instinct to withdraw my application.

In addition to technical communication and coding -- keep speed in mind too. You'll have to clear higher order functions, closure and recursion in order to be accepted. Ask clarifying questions and pseudocode if you can but really what is most important is communicating (talking aloud your thought process) as you keep coding out the problems.

It’s just too much. Phone Screening Take-Home (took me a couple hours) Attend a live virtual session 3- half hour interviews back to back 1- Presentation for 10+people 1-CEO call This is not necessary for an entry level role. Consider merging the 30 minute interviews into one since the same questions are asked and include the 10 minute presentation. Should be a take home or a presentation, not both. Find ways to make this a pleasant experience for the candidate so you can get an easy yes when an offer is given. Way too many red flags. Nice people and strong mission though!

As others have said, this was quite a lengthy interview process, with a phone screen, take home assignment, 2 hour long group interview, and then, presumably, one more round of interviews. The process demanded quite a bit of free labor; if this is what's expected of applicants, I can't imagine the unpaid additional work expected of the actual job.

Rigorous in testing the necessary Javascript skills. Tech interview proctors are kind and thorough in going over the format, what to expect, etc. Includes a cultural interview to maintain a positive, welcoming atmosphere.

Fairly lengthy process, phone screen, several interviews over the course of 2-3 hours, and several other time consuming activities such as attending their online classes, creating a presentation, and another take home assignment. Everyone was very kind and it seems like an energetic company, but I did not receive any feedback about why I was not selected. After investing so many hours, it would have been nice to receive some pointers to help in my job search.