still processing.█

9 rounds. THREE MONTHS. i kept track in a spreadsheet because at one point i forgot what round i was on. the role got reposted to linkedin three separate times during the process. each time id ask my recruiter and shed say 'thats just standard practice'. final outcome: 'we hired internally'. one day. one day after the third repost. the timing is something else.

im 47. interviewer asked when i planned to retire. as an actual question. when i pushed back the recruiter called it 'informal banter'. there is a class action waiting to happen at this company. im so tired of this industrys age problem.

the take-home prompt was their actual customer dashboard. i recognized one of the API names from a coworker who works there. politely declined. got 'not a fit'. wonder why

i thought it went really well. genuinely. the team was lovely on the first call. then they put me through a 'panel interview' with 6 people i had never met asking rapid fire questions for 90 minutes. one woman wouldnt let me finish a sentence. got the no for 'communication style mismatch'. like. what does that even mean. am i supposed to interrupt you all back next time?

recruiter called me from the dog park. 'sorry can you do this from your phone im walking my dog'. then ghosted me. no notes.

got the offer in WRITING on a tuesday. resigned on the wednesday. recruiter emailed thursday saying 'we have to pause headcount, we are so sorry'. so sorry. like SO sorry. couldnt unresign. spent two months unemployed. burned through savings. dont have the words. posting this so the next person knows: get the start date in writing AND confirmed by the hiring manager directly before you put in notice. dont trust the offer letter alone.

5 rounds. let me list them: 1) recruiter screen which was fine 2) hiring manager who barely looked up from her laptop 3) coding round on a leetcode medium i had actually solved before lol 4) system design with two staff engineers one of whom said 'interesting' twelve times 5) the 'team match' final which was THREE different managers asking essentially the same question in 90 minute blocks. 4 hours. no breaks. they said theyd get back in a week. got back in 12 days with 'we went with an internal candidate'. internal candidate that they presumably had the whole time??? recruiter has not replied to my followup in two weeks. its been a month. im fine. im totally fine.

It's not too bad. Overall experience was not bad I did not get any feedback though I had to hunt it down by different channels. The feedback that I got that was hidden from me was that I performed fairly well on the actual challenges and I somehow had gaps in my I had to tell about my success where I used some in-depth knowledge to help the company or speed things up. So somehow that story was not impressive even though it resulted literally in a massive surge of sign ups and interactions or anything. Anyways, the person interviewing me was a person from my country where I'm from and I could immediately feel there was bias and I wish they never paired us up because I would always feel it either is going to be a favourable or very negative one. I was a little bias away from the interview. Somehow this was the tipping point. Allegedly I'm good at developing things and I'm good at some other things but I'm not good at telling my own story. So that's the case.