- 30 mins call with a Recruiter. Went through my previous experiences, questions like "Why Canva" etc. Followed by a few JS theoretical questions and showed few JS code snippets. Negotiated and fixed the salary on a lower side :(
- 1 hour call with an Engineer. One simple JS exercise.
- 3 Hours (3 Technical rounds, 45 mins each and 1 Values round, 30 mins).
Really enjoyed (and nailed) my 2 technical + values round (Everyone so nice in these 3 rounds).
But this 3rd technical round was so demotivating and the most unprofessional & negative interview experience of my life. There was a medium level LeetCode type question. I almost solved the question but got stuck at a point. As I was debugging, this person started asking me some weird questions and gave me a bad look when I tried answering them. I mean it looked like he wanted me to fail (Its given on Canva's website that they want people to shine and not to fail). He made me so nervous that I failed to debug the problem. Moreover I came up with an O(1) space solution but he wanted an O(n) space stack solution (Problem can be solved using both the approaches). I mean who does that? I came up with the optimized solution and he wanted an unoptimized solution? Lol. It was just a one line mistake. Only one line. Interview ended, and it took me only 2 mins to fix that issue afterwards.
Result: Rejected and because of this 3rd round (Recruiter gave me the feedback afterwards). I mean because of only one line mistake I got rejected. One line. I shared my thought process, explained the approach, but NO. I got rejected because of that one line. He also told me earlier that its completely ok if we are not able to solve this completely, just explain the approach. But NO, they want the answer anyhow. If there is a single line of mistake, BOOM! you will be rejected. Moreover my solution was way more optimized than his solution.
Does it prove that I am not a good Frontend Engineer? Sorry you guys were wrong. I have a strong DS/ALGO background and I am a good Frontend Engineer but companies should realize that people do get nervous during the interviews (because of these types of Interviewers) and sometimes their solutions are better than the Interviewer's solution.
Canva's interview process is so broken (Because of these types of Interviewers). That's why no local candidate works for them and they always hire people from outside on Work Visa (I think Work Visa is way worse than the Australian PR. No benefits, nothing. Try getting a PR instead). Canva is a nice company and I ll love to apply back but not sure if I will because of such interviewers. You can read all other interview experiences here on Glassdoor. Almost everyone had a negative experience.
