I found the company through a current employee, who was quite friendly and referred me for a position. What followed proved to be one of the strangest processes I have experienced.
I first spoke with a recruiter, who was excited and engaging. Given my background and performance during the interview, he recommended I skip the formality of the tech screen and drop by for the onsite round. I soon connected with someone to coordinate my visit. Later that afternoon, however, the recruiter called me back to explain that the lead recruiter had overridden his decision and had insisted I go through the tech screen. He sounded defeated, as though he had been reprimanded. I felt bad for him—calling me back must have been humiliating.
I passed the tech screen, and the next week I came in for the onsite interview. The schedule included a coding challenge and a design project mixed with some behavioral elements. The first interviewer seemed friendly and set me up with the coding test, which involved validating a user’s roster given certain rules. While conceptually simple the setup featured a fantasy-sports system with multiple objects for players and positions, which I found rather confusing. In retrospect I would probably design it in a similar fashion, but deciphering foreign code and design in a timed, high-pressure environment convoluted my answer. I completed five of six requirements and given five more minutes would have finished the sixth. It was not my best work, but it was certainly fine. I discussed my answer with my interviewer, who agreed with my reasoning and said the next interviewer would be in shortly.
After more than fifteen minutes, a man came in and introduced himself as a senior member of recruiting. He told me that they had decided not to move forward with the process and immediately asked, “Are you shocked?” He said this with a strange tone, almost as though he were antagonizing me. I responded that while not shocked I was certainly surprised. He went on to explain that he prides himself on being direct with candidates and telling them exactly what he thinks. Given the current team, he felt the company needed more senior engineers and lacked the resources to bring on another junior employee. While this makes sense, his speech contained an element of self-praise, almost as though he were congratulating himself for his own prowess. He continued, claiming that my performance on the test—quite good but not exactly what they wanted—reflected my entire skillset, background, and potential as an engineer. This served as the foundation for twenty minutes of self-congratulating condescension. When he finally asked my thoughts, I responded that while I appreciated his being forthright I found his extrapolation based on a few minutes of contrived, high-pressure testing misguided and insulting. He said he didn’t entirely disagree. At this point I knew he was trying to break me, and I didn’t bother listening to the rest of his speech.
While I appreciate the first recruiter and the employee who referred me, this proved the most unpleasant interviewing experience I have had. I wonder if it was the same recruiting lead who made the first recruiter call me back. In any case, this experience saved me the ethical dilemma of whether I want to work for a company that lies to its customers and builds a platform for them to gamble their money away.
