I spoke briefly with an internal recruiter who was not overly enthusiastic. They offered to move me on to the next phase, which was either an outsourced HackerRank type video screen, that would be reviewed by the company, or a take home. I opted for the take home in pursuit of a more personal interview process. The take home is a CodeSandbox React app with a slew of requirements, and "Delighters" (pick 2), that you must complete. The suggested time is 2-3 hours, but anyone with real world knowledge who wants to do a halfway decent job will need more time. The recruiter sent a rejection with no feedback; when asked for feedback, they responded with "code quality" and "please try again in a few years". The overall process was impersonal and vague. Given the time investment of these take home exercises, the lack of transparency and feedback was disheartening. Anyone requesting multiple hours of work should be prepared to respond with well formed feedback; I received no indication that the work had even been reviewed. Given the mission statement for Codecademy as a whole, I was expecting a more open and constructive process.

In the initial phone screen, I got to learn a lot about Codecademy and what is on the future roadmap. The technical screen is outsourced to another company. You are asked a series of small technical questions and solve a problem. You are video recored the entire time. The questions are language and programming fundamentals. You will also get a code snippet and need to determine what is invalid and how to fix it. The programming question is difficult. The video recording and code is sent back to Codecademy for review. You can retake the interview within 24 hours and both recordings are sent to Codecademy for review. Overall, I thought the technical phone screen was cold. It felt awkward being recored. Also, I would have preferred working through a question with a potential coworker. It helps interviewees have more insight into the technical culture.