My own words re-written with chatGPT help. (my english is not the yellow from the egg )
Recently, I went through an interview process. I aced the coding challenge, my profile was well received, and I even made it to the final team discussion.
Still, I was rejected.
The problem? I didn’t clarify whether the next round would be framework-agnostic or focused on a specific framework.
After reviewing my solution, the feedback was:
“We’re happy with your code. Let’s meet the team and discuss it—we’d like to get to know you better.”
That one word—“it”—is where things went wrong.
I assumed it meant a project-level discussion and a broader UI conversation: why React vs Angular vs Next.js, state management choices, memoization, caching strategies, FCP, TTL, cookies, security, observability—the whole spectrum.
Instead, the question was very simple:
“What are Signals in Angular?”
I’ve worked with React for six years. Had I known Angular was in scope, I would’ve prepared and answered it. In my (admittedly weak) defense, the company has teams using Angular, Vue, and Next.js—but Angular prep was never mentioned.
Lesson learned: always ask the recruiter what to expect in the next round.
What topics? What stack? How deep?
If the answer is vague—“nothing much, just be there”—that’s a red flag. Thankfully, no recruiter has done that to me so far. This one’s on me for not asking.
I learned this the hard way—sharing it so you don’t have to.
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