Is this process for new college grads or senior engineers? I can't imagine principals go through this process, do they?
Is this a significant fraction of hires? Because I find it really odd to waste the time of a say an embedded software engineer trying to teach them React when they're pretty set on working on something else anyways…
Good question. It's definitely not just for new grads (I went through team selection as an IC5/senior engineer). There is a process where you can be hired directly onto a specific team, but I got the impression that it's the exception rather than the rule.
I would guess that someone joining at a super-high level like a principal engineer would be doing so to work on a specific team or technology.