An short phone screening and a do-it-at-home coding task preceded a final-round on-site interview. The on-site interview lasted about four hours and consisted of a three tasks: a general interview where competency questions were asked, a coding test and an 'architecture/theory' test. The first interview was fairly standard: I was questioned on my CV and past projects. The coding test was a pair-programming task that looked at a Python data pipeline. If you have a decent understanding of test-driven development and Python APIs this shouldn't be too difficult. The architecture test was the most difficult for me as the interviewers asked questions that are not easily answered without a good amount of industry experience. As a new graduate with little experience, I felt as though the questions were not very suitable. The company took about a week to get back to me, despite telling me that it would take them at most a few days. They also failed to reimburse my travel expenses despite promising to do so; sending them a reminder email did not remedy this.

I am a bit baffled on my experience with applying to Lyst. I applied online and promptly received an email to schedule an interview. I replied with some hours I could do the following week. I never got a response. I sent a second polite email after a week as a reminder but again no response. After a few weeks I sent an email to the HR explaining my situation and that I was still keen on the position. In less than one hour I received an email from the person who first had contacted me regarding scheduling an interview. There was no explanation as to why things had taken so long but I tried to let go and be as open and positive as possible. We arranged a phone call for the same day. During the phone call, the guy was rushing like hell. My merits were very good but it felt like it didn't matter. The guy was trying too hard to push the whole interview into 15-20 minutes. No surprise, but after that I did not receive a response again. Very unprofessional behavior. Like others have noted, Lyst might be a good workplace but this situation has made me a bit of a skeptic. I understand that recruiters can be overwhelmed or that some things happen internally. However I expect an explanation and an apology - something I never received.