🚀 My Quince Frontend Interview Experience | 45 LPA | SDE-3 Frontend

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Role: Frontend Engineer (SDE-3) Company: Quince

🔰 Introduction

Technical interviews in today’s world often feel like a lottery. You prepare for weeks, solve problems efficiently, and confidently walk out of each round, only to be met with rejection.

I recently interviewed at Quince for an SDE-2/3 Frontend Engineer position, and while I successfully cleared the first round, what followed was a classic example of the broken tech hiring process. If you’ve ever felt confused after getting rejected despite performing well, this article is for you.

🧪 Round 1: The Bar Raiser Round

Mode: BarRaiser Platform Focus Areas: Performance, Optimization, Problem Solving, and JavaScript Internals

This round was a mix of web performance questions and hands-on problem-solving. Here’s what was asked:

⚡ Web Performance & Optimization

• How to improve website performance metrics?
• CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift)
• FCP (First Contentful Paint)
• LCP (Largest Contentful Paint)
• Use of lazy loading, code splitting, reducing render-blocking resources, and more.
• What happens when you hit a URL?
• I explained DNS resolution, TCP handshake, TLS setup, HTTP request-response cycle, TTFB, and rendering.
• Deep dive into the Critical Rendering Path
• Topics included DOM Construction, CSSOM, Render Tree, layout, paint, and composite phases.

💡 JavaScript Tip: Always try to defer or async non-critical scripts and inline critical CSS to optimize render times

🧠 DSA + JavaScript Challenges

1️⃣ Union & Intersection of Two Sorted Arrays

const a = [1, 3, 4, 6, 7];
const b = [2, 3, 4, 5];

const union = [...new Set([...a, ...b])].sort((x, y) => x - y); 
// [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
const intersection = a.filter(val => b.includes(val)); 
// [3, 4]

2️⃣ Election Winner

Return the candidate with max votes. If there’s a tie, the first to appear wins.

const votes = ['a','a','b','b','a','b','c'];
const map = new Map();
let maxVotes = 0;
let winner = '';
for (let vote of votes) {
  map.set(vote, (map.get(vote) || 0) + 1);
  if (map.get(vote) > maxVotes) {
    maxVotes = map.get(vote);
    winner = vote;
  }
}
console.log(winner); // 'a'

3️⃣ Object Comparison

let obj1 = {};
let obj2 = {};
console.log(obj1 == obj2);  // false ❌
console.log(obj1 === obj2); // false ❌
// ⚠️ JavaScript compares objects by reference, not by value.

4️⃣ JavaScript Execution Order

console.log("a");
setTimeout(() => {
  console.log("b");
}, 0);
const promise = new Promise((resolve) => {
  console.log("e");
  resolve("c");
});
promise.then((result) => {
  console.log(result);
});
console.log("d");

// Output: a, e, d, c, b ✅

📚 JavaScript Note: Microtasks (promises) are executed before macrotasks (setTimeout). Learn your event loop!

Hey New Readers 👋

If you’re new here, make sure to check out my **Frontend Army** publication, where I have published 70+ detailed Frontend interview experiences, Top ReactJS, JavaScript questions, and many more.

Great resource for anyone preparing for Frontend Engineer interviews 🚀

💻 Round 2: Machine Coding Challenge

Task: Fetch data from an API and handle edge cases like null/empty responses, loading state, and errors.

I approached it with:

• Redux for state management
• Loading and Error states
• Modern hooks like useEffect, useSelector, and useDispatch
• Proper code modularization
• Clean folder structure

✅ I could have done this using just useState, but as engineers, we aim for scalable and production-ready code.

The code ran perfectly. The implementation was clean, testable, and explained thoroughly.

❌ What Went Wrong?

Here’s where things took a disappointing turn.

Despite solving everything in the second round, I got rejected.

🚩 My observations during the interview:

• The interviewer never turned on the camera
• It felt like I was talking into the void
• Zero engagement or follow-up questions
• The interviewer was a recent graduate, lacked depth
• No interest in exploring my solution or asking optimization questions

💡 If an interviewer doesn’t respect your time or effort, should you really work with them?

📩 The Final Blow: Rejection Email

Later that day, I received a generic rejection email. I reached out to HR to express my concerns, but… radio silence.

This is unfortunately, common in today’s hiring practices: no accountability, no feedback, and no explanation.

🎯 My Takeaways

1. You can ace interviews and still get rejected Sometimes, it’s not about your skill — it’s about who’s interviewing you.
2. Interviewers must be accountable A distracted panel shouldn’t be allowed to reject candidates without justification.
3. Never ignore red flags If an interviewer isn’t respectful during the interview, imagine how they’d be as a colleague or manager.
4. Feedback should be a two-way street Candidates spend hours preparing. A line of real feedback is the least we deserve.

🎥 Wishlist: Screen Recording During Interviews

A transparent hiring process should include:

• Screen recordings of interviews (with consent)
• Audit trail for interview feedback
• Feedback for every candidate, selected or not

This would remove bias, hold interviewers accountable, and bring fairness to the process.

🧾 Verdict: The Harsh Reality of Tech Hiring

Even after doing everything right:

• Solved all DSA problems
• Wrote clean production-level code
• Explained optimization in-depth

I was still rejected without a valid reason.

It’s time the industry stops romanticizing the “bar-raiser” and starts raising the bar for interviewers, too.

🙌 Final Words

If you’re reading this and you’ve gone through something similar — You are not alone.

Stay strong. Your worth isn’t defined by an interviewer who couldn’t bother to look you in the eye.

🔁 Share this to spread awareness 💬 Drop your story in the comments ❤️ Let’s fix this broken process — together.

📂 Proof of Authenticity & Real Experiences

⚠️ Disclaimer: The views and opinions shared in this post are solely my own and based on past experiences. They do not reflect the views of my current organization in any way.

🍁 Follow Me for More!

I am a Senior Frontend Engineer with 5+ years of experience, and I share interview experiences, frontend insights, technical blogs, and tech career tips.

💼 LinkedIn: **Gourav Hammad (25K+ followers) 🚀 Frontend Army: [My Medium Publication](https://medium.com/frontend-army) (525+ followers) 📩 Send me your queries at **gourav.hammad.sdbc@gmail.com

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