Recruiter sent link to application referral. Different recruiter went over all my experience with me on the phone, job by job. Hiring manager gave high level description on a call, answered questions. Then in-person, things were very weird. Almost everyone everywhere seemed nice, but the team interviewing me noticeably looked at the wall a few feet away from me instead of at me. Then later one of the interviewing team’s members — who had barely interacted with me at all and through earplugs most of that time — randomly snapped and angrily intoned an off topic disparaging remark as we were walking. He seemed to think I was applying to be his manager, but this was for an individual contributor’s role on a team. Despite my technical background being the basis for the interview, I was not asked any deeper technical questions that come to mind to gauge the depth of my experience in my niche, and further some remarks were made in a third-round interview that misrepresented my prior experiences based on some hiring team bias from past experiences with other people, who nominally shared my career experiences and who were neither in the room nor representative of me. I can relate to having a bad experience at some point, but I spent this entire interview fighting their boogeymen. Then they requested references and changed their minds the same day without speaking to any of my references. Across six weeks, I got a picture that is hard to neatly summarize. I wish them the best, but with what I can’t really tell after all this.

It’s your typical interview. Work history, where do you see yourself, please tell us about yourself. What are your best and worst qualities. The person interviewing me seemed nice but at the same time it felt like he wanted it to be done. I could only assume interviewing a bunch of people a day is exhausting and can become quite tedious.