Seems like your average three stages interview 1. Recruiter Call: Typical recruiter call with some technical questions taken of a PowerPoint to filter out people. 2. Remote live coding: A set of small programming problems using the hacker rank platform. I was expecting tricky questions and complex programming competition problems but was pleasantly surprised by something very approachable. Interviewer had a great supporting attitude and was a delight to work with. 3. Onsite live coding: Structure is a 4-hour interview with two sessions, each with half the time. both sets of problems were interesting and with the right amount of technical challenge for such interviews. My first set went smoothly (so I think), great 2-way communication, sharing what I did and what I could do provided more time and headspace to refactor, I managed to achieve all of the objectives that were requested. The second set, a new set of interviewers, the problem was easy enough again, I tried to convey my thought process and communicate, There was a small language issue, and in one of the objectives, I misunderstood the desired output. After I achieved the wrong output, another interviewer clarified what they wanted and I managed to recover quickly. Although it took me some time to reach the answer given my nerves at the moment, I recovered and felt pretty good, I tried to soften the atmosphere a bit with the occasional comment and smile but all I got were sour looks, I felt something was wrong then. further down this session, I hit a bug where the output I was expecting was not being achieved and being pressed for time, I went to my usual quick debugging strategy, where I put some console logs, make some assumptions about what I should be getting and then crosscheck with the reality of the code execution which will give me more information to uncover the issue, all of this was communicated aloud, so I believed my intended approach was clear. Here is where things went sideways (I think). One of the interviewers started pressing me using an annoyed tone of voice, "can you please understand the code you're writing before trying to run it" one of them said. This took me off guard and threw me off balance, as I believed I was being forced to approach the problem as they would have done it and did not leave any room for the process I explained I wanted to follow. I did as requested and it took me longer. I think they believed I just run code without understanding it, where in reality, I want to run the code to find why my mental model of what I wrote differs from reality, my way to do this is to check against the reality (running the code in an actual computer, not my already biased mental model of it). From then on I felt a sour energy from this interviewer. On a similar issue later on(being a long interview) I went to my usual process and this time I got hit with the same sentence as the last time in a very patronizing tone. This time I did not remain silent and further explained the process that I intended to follow. this time the interviewer seemed to have understood where I was coming from and let me proceed, of course, I fix the bug in a couple of seconds and then to show that I understand the code, I tried to explain in detail what the issue was, I was cut off at this moment with an "ok move along we get it" kind of response which really threw me off this time. I moved along and managed to complete all the requests and questions that were being asked of me, except one last question about achieving a certain output, I must confess I felt super tired and felt uncomfortable at this moment so the interviewer gave up and told me the answer. I felt super dumb at that point cause this solution was staring me right between the eyes and I could not believe I did not reach this conclusion. I blame this on being tired at this moment (after more than 4 hours of hard thinking) and what I perceived to be a total lack of kindness and empathy from the interviewers from about the halfway point of the session. After this, I thought I did pretty well actually, all things considered, I wasn't expecting to be perfect but competent and confident in my knowledge which I am, so I thought I would most likely get the offer. I didn't get it and after consulting with some friends who applied and did not get in as well (extremely talented engineers with a long list of technical achievements, I'm talking unicorn founding engineers LVL)a familiar topic started to creep, it says in their careers page that interviewers want you to succeed and will guide you through the process, but from my second session, I thought (even before knowing I did not get the offer) that their intent is to filter you out, so if you're interviewing there, a lot of your success will depend on whether you get a gatekeeper set of interviewers or not. I certainly won't be applying again as I'm not fond of a game of chance.

Interviewing at Canva was a rollercoaster of emotions, to say the least. The process started with an application that felt like it was stuck in a time warp. It took ages to proceed, leaving me wondering if my application had vanished into the digital abyss. After what seemed like an eternity, I finally heard back from a recruiter. However, any excitement I had quickly dissipated when I realized the recruiter's demeanor was less than welcoming. Their attitude bordered on rudeness, leaving me feeling uneasy throughout the conversation. Despite the less than stellar experience with the recruiter, I tried to remain optimistic and followed up with a thank-you email. Unfortunately, my efforts were met with silence. No response, no acknowledgment, nothing. Overall, my interview experience at Canva left much to be desired. While the company's reputation precedes itself in terms of its innovative platform and culture, the same cannot be said for its hiring process, which left me feeling undervalued and overlooked.