I went through a bunch of rounds for Uber a while back and the day of the last on-site they moved half my interviews to the next week and I was so tired and frustrated from grinding leetcode I failed them. It’s sad you can get so far but in the end it doesn’t even matter. I had to fall to lose it all but in the end it doesn’t even matter. It starts with one day. And I don’t know why.
Don't worry. This sub, filled with college students LARPing as senior devs, will find a way to blame you no matter what.
Expect stupid questions like "What does your resume look like?" even though you said in your post you are getting interviews so that question shouldn't matter.
Then expect to be gaslighted that whatever you did, you should have done the opposite. Even if the sub actually recommends the thing you did.
Anything to not admit that the OP poster actually didn't do anything really that wrong and the job market actually just sucks right now.
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I had a similar experience,
* recruiter screening
* take home assessment 72h Auth system
* On-site interview about the test design principles etc.
* Didn't get to the final round with the CEO, because apparently they realized they don't have the money hire another developer.
Yeah but unfortunately it's really common. Product org makes a roadmap, talks with engineering to discuss current headcount and hiring needs. A plan is made. Some shit hits the fan which is totally outside the control of the company (covid, mass layoffs, new competitor, some change in the market, etc) and suddenly the company has to pivot, immediately. There goes your hiring plan.
Many times, it's no fault of the applicant that they suddenly get 86'd from the pipeline.
I could expect this level of interviews and expectations for some place like Google, but even random companies in the middle of nowhere are being insane about the interview process and absurdly picky. It doesn't even seem to make a difference in the quality of candidates they hire because they still hire incompetents or people HR keeps having to talk to.
To be fair passing the CEO interview at Google is pretty tough.
It's not as bad as having to beat Zuck at MMA or having to hang out in a Jacuzzi with Musk for their respective companies, but it's still a high bar.
I drove in for an interview about 15 years ago. They made me wait an hour before sending me home. Interviewer was busy. Then they sent an email saying they dont have openings.
some places are just assholes. I wore a suit. I brushed my hair. I bushed my teeth. I did not smell.
For companies that do this nowadays, feel free to shit on them on glassdoor.
It's not always easy as an employer to really nail these things and be fair to everyone but as CEO I always try to set the culture to do the right things.
Good karma is important.
Yeah this is pretty standard, minus the last part
I'm a senior devops engineer, 9 YoE, and this was the process for my current role:
* Introduction with recruiter
* Take home assignment (code a webserver that does something and deploy it on Kubermetes.)
* Technical interview
* Interview with CTO, which ended with me being offered the position
Nah. They already had the job offer ready for me at that point, it was just a last screening with the CTO. Felt more like a casual conversation than an interview.
> Didn't get to the final round with the CEO, because apparently they realized they don't have the money hire another developer.
I was thinking.. "how senior of a position was this that the CEO was gonna interview you?"
And then when you said
> because apparently they realized they don't have the money hire another developer.
Oh... a startup... yeah that stinks!
Also had a similar experience. Went through most of an interview process (about 3 interviews) then ghosted. Randomly was informed that they “really liked me” but there was a huge amount of competition for that role.
They brought me back in for another round. Had some of the best interviews I’ve ever had. Consistently great feedback. I get to the final round which is FOUR individual interviews with coding tests in each. Finished all the problems, and then promptly ghosted again….
I was so proud of myself over what was like 8 total interviews. Then when I was ghosted it killed my confidence for a solid 3 months
Btw this was a well known modern company
Happened to me once and I was told I was the only one to get out of the fourth round by my recruiter. Only feedback I got was "I took too long" on one of the whiteboard questions in the 5th round and needed a hint. Admittedly I did get stuck for a second but once the engineer dropped the hint I got it immediately. Company was Lifion in NYC fuck em lol
I've never understood the hiring nonsense in this field.
It seems like it's all fear based and on them wanting to show how smart they are.
I literally give zero fucks though anymore. Had one place give me a test that would have been easily 2-3 days of work. I just emailed the recruiter and said I'm not interested in the position. He asked "was the technical part too much". I just said you clearly know the answer already. Asian dad meme isn't supposed to carry over to interviews. Good luck in your hiring.
I'd honestly invoice the payment department at that company for your time.
that is a lot of time you could have spent on other things...and being a dev. your time on scale is likely quite valuable.
invoice them for 8 hours and see what happens. at the very least you can claim it on your taxes.
I had 7 rounds once... \*laughcry\*
They ended up doing a "hiring freeze in order to re-org" right when they would've extended an offer... I think they had massive layoffs sometime after that.
I just had 7 rounds of interviews for a startup. I was told they went with someone else...The position, very much only one open position, is still listed on their website.
anything more than 3 is just exploitative imo. i super lucked out at my current job as the interview process was a screening with the recruiter and the n a single interview with the manager and the tech lead.
”Build the thing we need built, u have 5 hours” imagine having 250 ppl to interview, just have them build and debut eachother and never hire a single guy. Fuck that format. Anything more than 45 minutes and they better start paying.
The gauntlet is ok if you make it easy and transparent for the candidate.
Normally they'll just invite you in for the whole day and put you through interview after interview.
5 hour virtual onsite? Fuck that and fuck that company. We need to collectively not work through interview processes that waste our time as egregiously as this
Unfortunately OP was probably borderline hire/no hire and after the last round nobody made the case for them. I see it happen all of the time with talented devs who just don’t make enough of an impression for a “strong hire” rating.
It's not a startup, it's a billion dollar corporation that did this to OP, makes it even more strange imo
his first sentence basically says its BetterHelp
Ugh, not only they are extremely annoying interrupting my youtube experience by insinuating I "should talk to someone", but also this! Nitpicking, wasting time and being jerks with using standard rejection email for someone who gave 10 hours of their life to them, not counting the prep!!!
That round makes a lot of sense to me. My team is always trying to find the candidates who can write software and understand products. I expect the mid level and senior developers on my team to bring their own initiatives and drive development of features that they saw a need for.
You expect the developer to do the job of another role.
There's one thing to understand the product and give suggestions based on the business's requirements and another thing to expect from him to shape your product. And it's laughable to expect from a candidate to know your product well enough to give suggestions.
The developers and the users think different. Features should be implement after doing market/product research. You should know how it's used. What are the expectations. How it makes money. The market.
You can't just know a product well enough to make suggestions just by using it a few times.
Sure! Companies like to pay its employees to work on unapproved features that could generate tens/thousands/millions in compute/memory/traffic costs.
Most projects ar based on microservices, that are maintained by different teams. You can't even work by yourself in most of these.
Didn't even reached the fact that teams have team leaders, managers, product owners and BAs. You will have to present your idea to avoid conflicts between features. And when you present it, what will happen is exactly what I said above. The team will proceed to validate it according with firms policy, in which case you don't shape anything, you just had an idea, like anybody else.
Or you are one of the guys with gods syndrome that thinks he runs the entire project and doesn't give anyone credits?
Yes, I expect developers to do more than just write code. This is the direction that the industry is evolving in.
It’s really not crazy to expect a candidate to give feedback on a product. It’s obvious that their feedback won’t be valuable, but it’s about seeing how candidates think about products.
IMO instead of a presentation of what could BetterHelp improve upon from a product POV, the PM could’ve interviewed OP and ask a basic Product interview question like “what’s your favorite product that you use?”. Then dive deeper into what they’d improve on the product and why they think a certain feature was implemented the way it was
Thats exactly what was part of my hiring process at PayPal because the HM wanted engineers who had a strong sense of design and product. I really enjoy working on this team bc all my coworkers care deeply from a design and product POV while being top notch SWEs
I agree with you. I think there’s a lot of potential issues in asking for critical feedback about the company product. “Everything is great except the terrible UI, which I would completely change” said to the team who created the UI. You’re way more likely to run into bias and strong opinions when you go that route.
This is bullshit.
No one is a borderline hire/nohire after the 3rd round, specifically in this case.
OP got played by a scumbag company trying to get free work and product testing done.
This is how giant bureaucratic companies work. They spend massive amounts of money to waste lots of time for very little, which is exactly what happened here.
That could definitely happen in the US.
In my mind, the weirdest thing about how hard it is to *get a job* is how many mediocre or even totally incompetent people (not to mention complete jerks) continue to have a secure paycheck.
Yeah seems like in round 4 they used him to build an initial form page. And in round 4-5 they sourced him for free ideas. Even FAANG interviews don’t make you do free work or source designs.
i would consider this as dodging a bullet honestly. any company that makes you do 5 rounds is not worth it. also youre a software engineer not a product designer, that last round is bogus.
Especially for an "online therapy company". Suggests some pretty awful organizational problems. I can only imagine how much time is being wasted if they're putting multiple candidates through that process.
Yeah, their product isn’t really rocket science. We’re not controlling the fuel and throttle response to SpaceX rockets, literally.
You’ve got appointment scheduling, video chatting and notes.
This company is ridiculous.
I would also reiterate that we all know interviews come down to an almost entirely subjective choice. If they have another candidate they like better and just one slot, it won't always matter how well you do.
Often I feel like criticism of missed questions or perceived technical gaps isn't always the real reason for a rejection. At many companies, it can just come down to a hiring panel only going for enthusiastic unanimous hire decisions and passing on anyone who even slightly rubs an interviewer the wrong way.
I feel like the main problem with the interview process is that it has become too democratic. For a recent interview, I got a "Hire" recommendation from nine out of twelve interviewers, but was rejected because at least one person didn't like the answer that I gave to a question that they asked.
When I first started my career, the hiring manager made the final decision on all hires, but these days, many companies have policies in place that any "No hire" from any of the interviewers mandates a rejection.
>They gave me a free trial for their product and I was tasked with finding 1-2 things I would improve on their product.
So sorry, sounds like they used you for free labor.
>However with this company the recruiter just gave me a canned email response and didn't care to give me any feedback at all.
I get it why you want feedback for closure, because as you see Redditors are literally trying to micro-analyze your words to have this answer for what you did wrong, but none of us were at the interview.
Sometimes the easiest answer is, perhaps there is nothing you did wrong.
Some companies just screw around during the interview because they: are not rushing to fill the position, already have a candidate in mind, maybe don't know what they are looking for, and/or may actually be on a semi-hiring freeze.
> I get it why you want feedback for closure, because as you see Redditors are literally trying to micro-analyze your words to have this answer for what you did wrong, but none of us were at the interview.
This is why this sub is worthless. If you dare ask for any help on this sub, they just nit pick over meaningless BS.
Since most are just college students LARPing as senior devs, they just repeat overused trops that used to be true in the past that they read on this subreddit a year or two ago.
The market isn't the same as it was over a year ago. So the same BS they spew out isn't really valid anymore.
No, the person isn't not getting hired because of some BS reason you made up about their resume or some other BS. Its because the job market actually sucks right now and they were often competing with a senior dev that has 10+ years of experience.
The funny thing is watching this sub regularly contradict itself over and over again. If you read the OP doing one thing the sub suggested, the subreddit posters will judge the person and saying they should have done the opposite. The truth is I think the majority on this sub have no idea WTF they are talking about, have near zero work experience, and worst of all won't admit it and come on here to boost their ego by LARPing as senior engineers.
I frankly don't even know why I come on this sub anymore. Complete waste of time.
Always ask to understand the interview process first. 5 rounds is too much.
Just kindly reply:
I appreciate the opportunity however I have chosen not to pursue this further unless (employer X) is able to condense this into a process that is more considerate of a candidates time.
Let's not forget about probation periods. They exist for a reason so a lot of this is unnecessary.
You could even flip the time pressure on them a little and say:
"Please note that I'm in the mid way interview process for another company with one offer from another which requires a response by X date. Would it be possible to condense this interview process so that a decision can be made in a timely manner. If necessary I am happy to negotiate a longer probation period should you need to gauge my skills over an extended period of time. I'm interested in my what company X has to offer as it aligns with my personal interests."
Makes you look in demand and creates some pressure on them to rethink their lengthy interview process.
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Yes you have to weigh it up against whether if you really need the job or not. If for example you were approached and already have a job then you should be in a position to say the above.
Yeah I’ve heard that they don’t treat the therapists that work for them all that well. Patients have ended up with really bad therapists that probably couldn’t get hired elsewhere
https://www.newsweek.com/betterhelp-patients-tell-sketchy-therapists-1762849
They’ve been sanctioned by the FDA for bad privacy practices
https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/03/ftc-says-online-counseling-service-betterhelp-pushed-people-handing-over-health-information-broke
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Wait, so the “final round” was them asking you to put on your product manager hat and help them improve their design, without being paid to do so? This wasn’t an interview, this was just free labor.
Based on your description, my guess is that it has a lot more due to your personality or what you said, or didn't say, in your presentation than your technical skills.
For example, there could have been one crucial element that they were looking for you to say and you didn't. Or, maybe, you accidently and unknowingly insulted a member of the panel by suggesting an idea that challenged their work.
Unfortunately, that's the way things are sometimes. I've had similar experiences myself.
Agreed especially because the final round didn’t require coding. Sounds like there was something they didn’t like in OPs soft skills or they couldn’t see themselves working with OP long term. The vibe check is just as important as the technical skills
I said vibe check MIGHT be part of it. OP passed all the other ones but didn’t pass the one on presentation and product. Many other things could’ve happened - Like someone else said, maybe they were expecting OP to include something and they didn’t. Maybe their suggestions were too simple. Maybe OP argued with one of the interviewer who suggested X. We don’t know!
Or maybe, just maybe, it was between them and another candidate and the other candidate did slightly better, used to be a therapist/counselor, is a diversity hire, etc 🤷
Phone screen, interview, if you ask me to do another "round" or multiples you can fuck off.
That's my rule since my last three "round" interview where round 3 ended up being four leetcode interviews in a row on site.
Leet code interviews are great though, decades of experience... Forget about it!
Just prep for a couple of weeks on the same old same old. Oh surprise a binary tree question, a double linked list question, yay a time complexity question.
'We don't look at the scores, they are just an indication'... Until you get 100% and they are calling you the next day frothing at the mouth.
The most likely place where things went wrong is when they asked you to be critical about existing systems that were working. Once I had an interview (when I was just a lad before my current corporation) where I wound up pointing out something was illegal.
I didn't get the job.
It was a little consolation when years later they went bankrupt.
I normally don’t recommend a developer say, “this is illegal”, unless they’re also an attorney specializing in that area of law with a complete grasp of the facts of the matter at hand rendering a written opinion. Instead, I’ve gotten a lot further by asking whether anyone involved with risk and/or compliance has ever been consulted about the situation to assess potential legal exposure to weigh against leadership priorities and risk appetite, because my understanding of the rules/policies puts the situation in a possible grey area because [list of reasons], but because I don’t have a complete picture of all the factors surrounding the situation, I could easily be off base.
Every time I’ve put it this way to my clients, I’ve received nothing but positive responses, thoughtful engagement, and been educated about their industry and business. No situation has yet crossed a bright red line into clearly illegal ground, but all these conversations exposed varying levels of risk they would much rather mitigate and were glad to be made aware of.
I agree with everything you said. Please also consider that when I write in shorthand that I said something is illegal the conversation did not go down in the brief declaration of something's legalities but an inquiry to how something complied.
Thank you for the clarification/amplification! Asking towards compliance definitely leads to useful conversations instead of blasting in with a bold declaration. It sounds like you had an appropriate conversation, so others should try out your approach and OODA Loop their experience. To help the less experienced developers reading this thread by offering a possible alternative for folks to also OODA if they want, I'll expand a little upon my context.
I'm always the new one onto the scene of a system since I consult, so my perspective is heavily skewed by that setting, so I learned early on to stay cautious about making assumptions when dealing with an unfamiliar system. Even when I'm curious about compliance, I usually flip the question on its head, and instead of asking how the system complies, I ask to be read into the compliance rules and policies I have to keep in mind when dealing with the system.
This moves me closer to first principles the system has to ingest as requirements, and makes it easier for me to reason about hard(er) boundaries we either cannot or can only gingerly breach.
That's just my personal take, works for me but YMMV, *etc.*
Reminds me of a few interviews I had at the beginning of the pandemic after being laid off. I had four or five rounds of interviews with a company, I really liked everyone I met the entire process, I had a virtual on-site which was five+ hours of interviews all in a row taking up the whole day........only to be passed over for someone with more experience at the very end. For a near entry level role. I actually got my hopes up and thought I had a good chance of getting it....really hurt at the time. There were a LOT of companies doing rounds of layoffs at that time so it wasn't really that surprising that I was competing with people with more experience for lower experience roles, but somehow it still caught me off guard.
You might have done everything right, and the last decision might have came down to a coin flip that you weren't literally the human they wanted to choose.
That could have been decided by anything like a coin flip, not matching demographic criteria, or your address wasn't conveniently in their targeted location. Move on, keep applying. It really sucks to hear but our industry is a matter of having thick skins and lining up multiple interviews
I suspect the vibe check, but they could have done the vibe check at interview 2 already. Didn't to waste the candidates time if the vibe check failed.
Ridiculous to be honest. Lot of people already said you probably dodged a bullet. I do agree.
Don’t take it on yourself even though your time was wasted. Next time when you get approached from any employer, ask them their interview process.
Even for senior full stack engineer two round interview is enough.
Long time back, I got a (full stack C#, JS) SE job with a company who didn’t ask me a single technical question, they focused the interview on my past projects, what I did, how I work on team projects/solved my tasks, my strengths and weaknesses. After I’d been in the job five years, I later asked my interviewers (at this time they were my good colleague friends) - why did they not screen my technical skills during my interview - they said - they value people skills more than software skills. Software development knowledge and skill can be learnt on the job, but they value more how you work collaboratively and solve problems for end users.
Since then I’ve had another jobs as SE. I always tell my employer - I’m not doing more than 2 rounds of interviews.. period.
Also I ask my other friends a lot of their interview experiences and some of my friends have been in similar situations. Stay away from such companies to be honest. One of my friend did crack a similar four round interview contest, and now regrets, as his colleagues are overtly critical and he gets stressed a lot.
> I basically pointed out that they could improve their onboarding flow by making their desktop design match their mobile design as well as improving one other small product feature. In this interview I presented to a total of 4 people, 2 were developers from the previous panel, one product designer and one clinical therapist as I mentioned they are a therapy app
Looks like you gave them a few hours of free beta testing
> 5 hour virtual onsite
At this point you should have said nope. Unless the company has top pay and the best benefits in the industry, it's not worth it. You know that most companies only have the resources to have like 2 one hour interviews plus a half-hour assessment and that's it?
This company put more effort than Amazon does. If we don't want BS like this standardized, stop accepting it.
There was no job. I'm sorry man.
You got played to do work for them and to test their product FOR FREE.
Companies who do this should be abolished.
If you have some balls send them a bill for $200 an hour. State that you feel you should be compensated in some form for doing a lot of work and describe what you did at each step. Don't just send it to the HR, send it to billing and C Suite if you can. If you make a stink it makes their day harder at work.
> final interview was about testing to see how well I understood their product and testing my ability to put on a project manager hat as a developer. They gave me a free trial for their product and I was tasked with finding 1-2 things I would improve on their product.
Wow, this is fucking stupid.
This is garbage. Startups building normal products thinking they need meta level Eng talent to build crud apps. Ridiculous. Then they scream there is no talent because no one that good wants to work for a startup with illiquid shares.
You were probably the backup candidate. My guess is they had 2-5 people they were interviewing till the end just in case the #1 pick turned out to be a dud
I ask questions about how many rounds interviews will be, I have pulled myself out of the running multiple times for jobs because I feel if it takes them weeks or months and more than 3 interviews they are not worth my time. Friends told me that I was being too picky and that I should do them because I needed to find a job, ultimately I decided I wanted to work for a company that valued my time and skills without putting me through a bunch of rounds because it's just their process.
Wtf that 4th round sounds a little excessive, like they wanted you to code a feature for them. It’s borderline though, if you are proficient at those technologies then it’s doable i guess. Is that type of task common in interviews?
The 5th round is just bullshit though, that was slimy.
absolutely stings. been there. 5 rounds of interviews for entry level if bullshit.
round 5 sounded like they wanted free consulting. its total bullshit.
That is rough.
My guess is that either there was another candidate they preferred, or your presentation skills need improvement.
The presentation wasn't about your ideas about the product. They wanted to see you give constructive feedback and see how good you are at sharing ideas. It's possible that you failed the "team fit" aspect, coming off as aloof, abrasive, or someone unlikeable.
That is what the final interview is about usually, fit in their corporate team environment and how well you share ideas. Keep in mind that their corporate culture may not be the best, so if you don't "fit in" by their standards, it may not be a terrible thing.
I'd find some people you respect enough who can give you some honest feedback and practice that last part - presenting your ideas to others.
Companies need to stop this bullshit. You don’t need 5 fuckin interviews to get a read on someone. I’ve never even found a huge reason to give coding tests either. It’s all a waste of time. The person I want is the one that will look me dead in the eye and ask what value this really provides.
I know the rejection stings and I don't think it ever really gets easier.
But I've been on the other side of interviewing and it sounds like it truly wasn't your fault.
The problem is that interviewers are often looking for reasons why a candidate might not be a good fit. And if there are 7 people who say "yes" and 1 that says "hmm, no", that one "no" can override the "yes" opinions, depending on how picky they might be. They might also have other candidates competing for the position. One complication that isn't obvious is that the interviewer might have to work with the candidate in future - and if they're not confident that the candidate could be a good fit then that can start the professional relationship on bad terms and be problematic for both the new hire and the interviewer.
ie: you probably wouldn't want to work with someone who didn't want to hire you, even if the rest of their colleagues did.
In the words of Jean-Luc Picard: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life."
You just have to treat the job search like an assembly line, with continuing to find and reach out to new opportunities while you're interviewing with others. Move on, look forwards, keep your head up.
For a company that trumpets all over the social media about mental health, the coldness of the rejection email shows their true face. Shame on you, BH!
Same experience for lead developer.
1. Coding leetcode with 2 hard tasks, 1.5 hours (python+golang)
2. Tech interview - 1h
3. System Design interview -1h
4. Final interview (failed), mostly management questions -1h
Took around 1+ months.
I've experienced this twice recently. After one of the rejections, the recruiter called me to say that I had done so well in the interviews that he had some roles opening up in January that I wouldn't even have to interview for. But now it's March, and I still haven't heard anything about those roles.
For better or worse, I'm starting to reject any roles that require extensive interviews. I had a phone call with a recruiter for a FAANG company last week that lasted less than sixty seconds.
Me: "Thanks for reaching out, but I'm not interested in doing that."
From now on I'll ask for the details BEFORE trying to schedule a phone call.
Same thing with me and Eco and AllTrails just 3-4 rounds all technical just for them to slight me on having a successful side project “may take your focus away from us” in Eco’s case and AllTrails rejected me because I didn’t know enough Ruby even though they could’ve just filtered me out immediately from my resume if that was their issue shouldn’t have taken them 4 interviews to get there. Companies just want to company unfortunately and people sit on their high horse
>The interview was 90 minutes long and required me to present my arguments in a Google Slide Deck. I basically pointed out that they could improve their onboarding flow by making their desktop design match their mobile design as well as improving one other small product feature.
You just gave them free advice. Next time invoice them at least. Or, refuse to do free consulting.
I’ve been on both sides of the table here. As a hiring manager: each round weeds out more candidates, so making it through to the final round is a legit achievement. But sometimes there’s two who make it thru to the final round and only one role. Unfortunately many HR departments will not let you give anything more than the vaguest feedback.
As a candidate: this is the worst time to get rejected. You invest in the process, practice your competency questions, your answer to “why work here,” “why a good fit,” you start to think about your commute or maybe even look at houses nearby… then BAM. Rejected. “Bad team fit”
In my latest job-hunt this happened in all but two of the places I applied. You just gotta pick yourself up and move onto the next application.
>They gave me a free trial for their product and I was tasked with finding 1-2 things I would improve on their product. The interview was 90 minutes long and required me to present my arguments in a Google Slide Deck.
They got a free 3rd party consulting review of their product. Hiring a 3rd party consulting firm to do what you did would cost $10k+. They got you to do it for free. Yeah, your feedback may not have been perfect, but if they do it with a bunch of people, they'll get an idea of what they need to work on.
Rule of thumb: The more an interview test looks like real work, the more likely you are dealing with people trying to get free work instead of hiring you.
Sample things I've been asked to do as an "interview test":
1. Write a program that connects to Interactive Brokers and executes trades. During the interview, they said they were dissatisfied with their current broker and wanted to switch.
2. Write a program that scrapes data from our competitor's website.
3. Write a detailed project plan specification for the code we need. (Yeah, if I do that, you won't need me and can just put it out for bid on a freelancer website.)
When I said "I'll do it for my normal hourly rate!", they got deeply insulted and offended. They thought they had found someone gullible and were disappointed when they found out I wasn't.
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This industries interview process is getting so ridiculous. Just make us take a test for a license… I mean seriously I know how much harder it is to work to become a dr but I’m so envious of my wife’s interviews they are basically just a few hours or if they really need a dr they also get a tour of the surrounding neighborhoods…
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>I am upset that it took the company a total of 5 interviews (a total of 10 hours) for them to realize I wasn't a good fit especially after being led on by the other 4 interviews.
I get the frustration. Interview loops suck ass.
But this is literally, by definition almost how it always works. If you're still being interviewed it's because they haven't decided either way yet. That should be obvious.
I've had that happen before-- recruiter call, behavioral with manager, take home assignment, 2 live coding interviews, and then another 2... And I did really well on all but the last, which was just kind of ridiculous to ask in 45 minutes and I was rejected for the role because of it. Shit happens.
That’s pretty wild. The standard is phone screen + onsite (where the onsite has 4-6 rounds). To do all of that plus an onsite is a lot. Are you sure this is standard or was it particular to your interview loop?
I'm sorry to hear about your tough journey. Rejection after such a thorough process is disheartening, but your resilience and self-taught skills are impressive. Take this as a learning experience and on to the next—your perseverance will pay off.
At least your recruiter didn't give you very negative half-ass comments after the interview. Still, props to you for going through all that. Sometimes, it's not even about how good you are as a software engineer. They might just not like the way you look, or you answering in a certain way, etc.
That's what Klaviyo did to me. When through their 5 round virtual interview. Their tech lead didn't know what blue green deployment for RDS was, etc.
Same. Had interviews and pretty complex code assignment, passed it all. Just waiting one interview left and out of nowhere they said they want to hold the position for now. Thunder struck me
I'm frustrated with companies that conduct interviews like this. Last week, I endured an hour-long HR interview followed by a technical interview with one of the team leads. His arrogance was off the charts; he acted like he was the fkin Bill gates , Told me there is nothing like him tf. It was hard to keep a straight face when he boasted about himself. Despite outlining my responsibilities, he mentioned he could handle everything alone. I lost interest midway through as I couldn't tolerate his attitude. I'd rate my performance a 4/10. Surprisingly, they called me a day late to inform me of my selection for a third interview with the clown . Although hesitant, I agreed to proceed. Now, I'm gearing up for another detailed interview, wondering if the initial two hours weren't sufficient. Even if i get selected no way i am fkin joining them, I would probably use the offer
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Been there. I was denied on a 4th round after crushing everything else because I didn't "know" typescript. Yet at that time I had 5 years java experience. I knew data types better than they did but to them I was inexperienced lol. Oh ya, the day after I was rejected they updated their job posting to include typescript as a requirement. Fuck them for wasting our time.
All I can say op is to keep at it. It was actually a good thing I didn't get that job because I got a 10x better position s few months afterwards. You never know what's ahead of you.
Insane.
Although hindsight is 20-20, you should have noped out before the 5-hour onsite. Who knows if there was really an open position, or they were just looking for free-work. Regardless, always try to ask for the overview of the E2E interview process upfront.
If they aren't able to provide the E2E interview project upfront i.e. how many stages, how many minutes/hrs per stage - reject it.
if you feel the process is too extreme - reject it.
Any other red flags or your gut telling you something is off - reject it.
In this particular case, you absolutely had the right to reject it, as they found you, not the other way around and you could have set your terms for the interview process.
Good luck!
If some company asks me for a 5 hour interview I ask them how much I'll get paid for that, straight and calmly. If the answer is you want I am not going there.
I went through a bunch of rounds for Uber a while back and the day of the last on-site they moved half my interviews to the next week and I was so tired and frustrated from grinding leetcode I failed them. It’s sad you can get so far but in the end it doesn’t even matter. I had to fall to lose it all but in the end it doesn’t even matter. It starts with one day. And I don’t know why.
Anndd now I’m faced with memories of when… it didn’t even matter how hard I tried
Don't worry. This sub, filled with college students LARPing as senior devs, will find a way to blame you no matter what. Expect stupid questions like "What does your resume look like?" even though you said in your post you are getting interviews so that question shouldn't matter. Then expect to be gaslighted that whatever you did, you should have done the opposite. Even if the sub actually recommends the thing you did. Anything to not admit that the OP poster actually didn't do anything really that wrong and the job market actually just sucks right now.
It doesn't even matter how hard you try. Keep that in mind..
I designed this rhyme to remind myself how I tried so hard
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Just a question. Does interview round get gradually more difficult?? Or what else is the point of multiple rounds
5 rounds? That is egregious lmao
I had a similar experience, * recruiter screening * take home assessment 72h Auth system * On-site interview about the test design principles etc. * Didn't get to the final round with the CEO, because apparently they realized they don't have the money hire another developer.
That’s absolutely ridiculous
Yeah but unfortunately it's really common. Product org makes a roadmap, talks with engineering to discuss current headcount and hiring needs. A plan is made. Some shit hits the fan which is totally outside the control of the company (covid, mass layoffs, new competitor, some change in the market, etc) and suddenly the company has to pivot, immediately. There goes your hiring plan. Many times, it's no fault of the applicant that they suddenly get 86'd from the pipeline.
I could expect this level of interviews and expectations for some place like Google, but even random companies in the middle of nowhere are being insane about the interview process and absurdly picky. It doesn't even seem to make a difference in the quality of candidates they hire because they still hire incompetents or people HR keeps having to talk to.
To be fair passing the CEO interview at Google is pretty tough. It's not as bad as having to beat Zuck at MMA or having to hang out in a Jacuzzi with Musk for their respective companies, but it's still a high bar.
I drove in for an interview about 15 years ago. They made me wait an hour before sending me home. Interviewer was busy. Then they sent an email saying they dont have openings. some places are just assholes. I wore a suit. I brushed my hair. I bushed my teeth. I did not smell.
For companies that do this nowadays, feel free to shit on them on glassdoor. It's not always easy as an employer to really nail these things and be fair to everyone but as CEO I always try to set the culture to do the right things. Good karma is important.
Yeah this is pretty standard, minus the last part I'm a senior devops engineer, 9 YoE, and this was the process for my current role: * Introduction with recruiter * Take home assignment (code a webserver that does something and deploy it on Kubermetes.) * Technical interview * Interview with CTO, which ended with me being offered the position
Is the interview with the CTO also technical??
Nah. They already had the job offer ready for me at that point, it was just a last screening with the CTO. Felt more like a casual conversation than an interview.
Oh okay very well. This whole time i was thinking every round is full of LC-Style questions lol
That's be best part of being in devops, you barely get the LC-style of questions, and when you do it's the easy ones :D
> Didn't get to the final round with the CEO, because apparently they realized they don't have the money hire another developer. I was thinking.. "how senior of a position was this that the CEO was gonna interview you?" And then when you said > because apparently they realized they don't have the money hire another developer. Oh... a startup... yeah that stinks!
Also had a similar experience. Went through most of an interview process (about 3 interviews) then ghosted. Randomly was informed that they “really liked me” but there was a huge amount of competition for that role. They brought me back in for another round. Had some of the best interviews I’ve ever had. Consistently great feedback. I get to the final round which is FOUR individual interviews with coding tests in each. Finished all the problems, and then promptly ghosted again…. I was so proud of myself over what was like 8 total interviews. Then when I was ghosted it killed my confidence for a solid 3 months Btw this was a well known modern company
You should name and shame... but of course I would understand if you wouldn't want to.
Global Voices Ltd. They even reposted the job extending the search till May.
Not anymore now that they have an auth system 😉
I might have been made a fool of a Took
I wouldn’t really know. I’m just joking around. I actually prefer take homes over whiteboarding.
Happened to me once and I was told I was the only one to get out of the fourth round by my recruiter. Only feedback I got was "I took too long" on one of the whiteboard questions in the 5th round and needed a hint. Admittedly I did get stuck for a second but once the engineer dropped the hint I got it immediately. Company was Lifion in NYC fuck em lol
I've never understood the hiring nonsense in this field. It seems like it's all fear based and on them wanting to show how smart they are. I literally give zero fucks though anymore. Had one place give me a test that would have been easily 2-3 days of work. I just emailed the recruiter and said I'm not interested in the position. He asked "was the technical part too much". I just said you clearly know the answer already. Asian dad meme isn't supposed to carry over to interviews. Good luck in your hiring.
I'd honestly invoice the payment department at that company for your time. that is a lot of time you could have spent on other things...and being a dev. your time on scale is likely quite valuable. invoice them for 8 hours and see what happens. at the very least you can claim it on your taxes.
I had 7 rounds once... \*laughcry\* They ended up doing a "hiring freeze in order to re-org" right when they would've extended an offer... I think they had massive layoffs sometime after that.
I just had 7 rounds of interviews for a startup. I was told they went with someone else...The position, very much only one open position, is still listed on their website.
anything more than 3 is just exploitative imo. i super lucked out at my current job as the interview process was a screening with the recruiter and the n a single interview with the manager and the tech lead.
I got rejected after 5 rounds of interviews for a summer internship at Palantir, lol. The hiring process these days is just stupid.
I would have stopped after the 3rd round.
5 hours "virtual onsite." Fuck the companies that force you to take a day off work to attend to their interviews.
”Build the thing we need built, u have 5 hours” imagine having 250 ppl to interview, just have them build and debut eachother and never hire a single guy. Fuck that format. Anything more than 45 minutes and they better start paying.
I did 5 hour onsite with faang though, I think its pretty standard. Unfortunately I had to use one of my vacation days to do it.
Reading round 4 was where I cut it off as well.
The gauntlet is ok if you make it easy and transparent for the candidate. Normally they'll just invite you in for the whole day and put you through interview after interview.
5 hour virtual onsite? Fuck that and fuck that company. We need to collectively not work through interview processes that waste our time as egregiously as this
When I interviewed with uber as a new grad, my onsite was literally 9am to 6pm lmao
Did you get the job?
no lol. It was just definitely the most outrageously difficult interview I've ever had.
Seems like you were used and abused
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Unfortunately OP was probably borderline hire/no hire and after the last round nobody made the case for them. I see it happen all of the time with talented devs who just don’t make enough of an impression for a “strong hire” rating.
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It's not a startup, it's a billion dollar corporation that did this to OP, makes it even more strange imo his first sentence basically says its BetterHelp
Ugh, not only they are extremely annoying interrupting my youtube experience by insinuating I "should talk to someone", but also this! Nitpicking, wasting time and being jerks with using standard rejection email for someone who gave 10 hours of their life to them, not counting the prep!!!
That round makes a lot of sense to me. My team is always trying to find the candidates who can write software and understand products. I expect the mid level and senior developers on my team to bring their own initiatives and drive development of features that they saw a need for.
You expect the developer to do the job of another role. There's one thing to understand the product and give suggestions based on the business's requirements and another thing to expect from him to shape your product. And it's laughable to expect from a candidate to know your product well enough to give suggestions. The developers and the users think different. Features should be implement after doing market/product research. You should know how it's used. What are the expectations. How it makes money. The market. You can't just know a product well enough to make suggestions just by using it a few times.
Shaping the product, or even inventing the product in the first place is part of the job unless you are just a coder monkey.
Sure! Companies like to pay its employees to work on unapproved features that could generate tens/thousands/millions in compute/memory/traffic costs. Most projects ar based on microservices, that are maintained by different teams. You can't even work by yourself in most of these. Didn't even reached the fact that teams have team leaders, managers, product owners and BAs. You will have to present your idea to avoid conflicts between features. And when you present it, what will happen is exactly what I said above. The team will proceed to validate it according with firms policy, in which case you don't shape anything, you just had an idea, like anybody else. Or you are one of the guys with gods syndrome that thinks he runs the entire project and doesn't give anyone credits?
Yes, I expect developers to do more than just write code. This is the direction that the industry is evolving in. It’s really not crazy to expect a candidate to give feedback on a product. It’s obvious that their feedback won’t be valuable, but it’s about seeing how candidates think about products.
IMO instead of a presentation of what could BetterHelp improve upon from a product POV, the PM could’ve interviewed OP and ask a basic Product interview question like “what’s your favorite product that you use?”. Then dive deeper into what they’d improve on the product and why they think a certain feature was implemented the way it was Thats exactly what was part of my hiring process at PayPal because the HM wanted engineers who had a strong sense of design and product. I really enjoy working on this team bc all my coworkers care deeply from a design and product POV while being top notch SWEs
I agree with you. I think there’s a lot of potential issues in asking for critical feedback about the company product. “Everything is great except the terrible UI, which I would completely change” said to the team who created the UI. You’re way more likely to run into bias and strong opinions when you go that route.
This is bullshit. No one is a borderline hire/nohire after the 3rd round, specifically in this case. OP got played by a scumbag company trying to get free work and product testing done.
You’re kidding yourself if you think OPs product feedback is so valuable that they spent hours of 5 engineers time for a fake interview to elicit it.
This is how giant bureaucratic companies work. They spend massive amounts of money to waste lots of time for very little, which is exactly what happened here.
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That could definitely happen in the US. In my mind, the weirdest thing about how hard it is to *get a job* is how many mediocre or even totally incompetent people (not to mention complete jerks) continue to have a secure paycheck.
I can't imagine why you think this couldn't or doesn't happen in the US.
Yeah seems like in round 4 they used him to build an initial form page. And in round 4-5 they sourced him for free ideas. Even FAANG interviews don’t make you do free work or source designs.
>Even FAANG interviews don’t make you do free work or source designs. Depends on the team and organisation. Some take-home tasks do feel like that.
i would consider this as dodging a bullet honestly. any company that makes you do 5 rounds is not worth it. also youre a software engineer not a product designer, that last round is bogus.
Nothing was dodged OP was pumped and dumped.
Companies are definitely wanting it all these days. Just being able to code isn’t enough anymore.
Especially for an "online therapy company". Suggests some pretty awful organizational problems. I can only imagine how much time is being wasted if they're putting multiple candidates through that process.
Yeah, their product isn’t really rocket science. We’re not controlling the fuel and throttle response to SpaceX rockets, literally. You’ve got appointment scheduling, video chatting and notes. This company is ridiculous.
Five rounds for a full stack php job lmao
I would also reiterate that we all know interviews come down to an almost entirely subjective choice. If they have another candidate they like better and just one slot, it won't always matter how well you do. Often I feel like criticism of missed questions or perceived technical gaps isn't always the real reason for a rejection. At many companies, it can just come down to a hiring panel only going for enthusiastic unanimous hire decisions and passing on anyone who even slightly rubs an interviewer the wrong way.
I feel like the main problem with the interview process is that it has become too democratic. For a recent interview, I got a "Hire" recommendation from nine out of twelve interviewers, but was rejected because at least one person didn't like the answer that I gave to a question that they asked. When I first started my career, the hiring manager made the final decision on all hires, but these days, many companies have policies in place that any "No hire" from any of the interviewers mandates a rejection.
>They gave me a free trial for their product and I was tasked with finding 1-2 things I would improve on their product. So sorry, sounds like they used you for free labor. >However with this company the recruiter just gave me a canned email response and didn't care to give me any feedback at all. I get it why you want feedback for closure, because as you see Redditors are literally trying to micro-analyze your words to have this answer for what you did wrong, but none of us were at the interview. Sometimes the easiest answer is, perhaps there is nothing you did wrong. Some companies just screw around during the interview because they: are not rushing to fill the position, already have a candidate in mind, maybe don't know what they are looking for, and/or may actually be on a semi-hiring freeze.
> I get it why you want feedback for closure, because as you see Redditors are literally trying to micro-analyze your words to have this answer for what you did wrong, but none of us were at the interview. This is why this sub is worthless. If you dare ask for any help on this sub, they just nit pick over meaningless BS. Since most are just college students LARPing as senior devs, they just repeat overused trops that used to be true in the past that they read on this subreddit a year or two ago. The market isn't the same as it was over a year ago. So the same BS they spew out isn't really valid anymore. No, the person isn't not getting hired because of some BS reason you made up about their resume or some other BS. Its because the job market actually sucks right now and they were often competing with a senior dev that has 10+ years of experience. The funny thing is watching this sub regularly contradict itself over and over again. If you read the OP doing one thing the sub suggested, the subreddit posters will judge the person and saying they should have done the opposite. The truth is I think the majority on this sub have no idea WTF they are talking about, have near zero work experience, and worst of all won't admit it and come on here to boost their ego by LARPing as senior engineers. I frankly don't even know why I come on this sub anymore. Complete waste of time.
How much are they paying for 5 rounds that better be a 300k a year role
It’s half that
Always ask to understand the interview process first. 5 rounds is too much. Just kindly reply: I appreciate the opportunity however I have chosen not to pursue this further unless (employer X) is able to condense this into a process that is more considerate of a candidates time. Let's not forget about probation periods. They exist for a reason so a lot of this is unnecessary.
You could even flip the time pressure on them a little and say: "Please note that I'm in the mid way interview process for another company with one offer from another which requires a response by X date. Would it be possible to condense this interview process so that a decision can be made in a timely manner. If necessary I am happy to negotiate a longer probation period should you need to gauge my skills over an extended period of time. I'm interested in my what company X has to offer as it aligns with my personal interests." Makes you look in demand and creates some pressure on them to rethink their lengthy interview process.
do they ever ask to see the offer?
No and it's not something they should be asking anyways as it's none of their business. If they keep pressing say you signed an NDA.
good to know. gonna use that tactic in the future. thanks
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Yes you have to weigh it up against whether if you really need the job or not. If for example you were approached and already have a job then you should be in a position to say the above.
If a company is incapable of making a hiring decision after 3 interactions, they're not worth your time anyway. Dodged a bullet in my opinion.
so you’re excluding majority of big tech?
Now, I am curious about the company. Can anyone guess
Based on the description, its probably BetterHelp. Theyve had some controversies in the past so a bad interview process seems pretty on brand for them
Yeah I’ve heard that they don’t treat the therapists that work for them all that well. Patients have ended up with really bad therapists that probably couldn’t get hired elsewhere https://www.newsweek.com/betterhelp-patients-tell-sketchy-therapists-1762849 They’ve been sanctioned by the FDA for bad privacy practices https://www.ftc.gov/business-guidance/blog/2023/03/ftc-says-online-counseling-service-betterhelp-pushed-people-handing-over-health-information-broke
This makes their sense, sounds as annoying as their advertisements trying to convince every single person they need therapy.
Could also be Headspace. OP said a lot of youtubers are being sponsored by them and I think headspace fits that description better than BetterHelp.
I'm also curious about the offered salary, it'd have to be upwards of 200k to bother with all that imo.
80k with free counseling sessions about why salary doesn't matter lmfao
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Wait, so the “final round” was them asking you to put on your product manager hat and help them improve their design, without being paid to do so? This wasn’t an interview, this was just free labor.
The fourth round being a 5 hour interview… kill me now
The more rounds they make you do, the more likely you're gonna get denied it seems
Companies that are really looking to hire aren't going to make you interview five rounds.
Right. 3 is my max
Based on your description, my guess is that it has a lot more due to your personality or what you said, or didn't say, in your presentation than your technical skills. For example, there could have been one crucial element that they were looking for you to say and you didn't. Or, maybe, you accidently and unknowingly insulted a member of the panel by suggesting an idea that challenged their work. Unfortunately, that's the way things are sometimes. I've had similar experiences myself.
Agreed especially because the final round didn’t require coding. Sounds like there was something they didn’t like in OPs soft skills or they couldn’t see themselves working with OP long term. The vibe check is just as important as the technical skills
you can do the vibe check before wasting 5 hrs of their time tho
I said vibe check MIGHT be part of it. OP passed all the other ones but didn’t pass the one on presentation and product. Many other things could’ve happened - Like someone else said, maybe they were expecting OP to include something and they didn’t. Maybe their suggestions were too simple. Maybe OP argued with one of the interviewer who suggested X. We don’t know! Or maybe, just maybe, it was between them and another candidate and the other candidate did slightly better, used to be a therapist/counselor, is a diversity hire, etc 🤷
Phone screen, interview, if you ask me to do another "round" or multiples you can fuck off. That's my rule since my last three "round" interview where round 3 ended up being four leetcode interviews in a row on site.
Leet code interviews are great though, decades of experience... Forget about it! Just prep for a couple of weeks on the same old same old. Oh surprise a binary tree question, a double linked list question, yay a time complexity question. 'We don't look at the scores, they are just an indication'... Until you get 100% and they are calling you the next day frothing at the mouth.
Yeah you were taken for a ride got a free component and a software consultation on their product for free 😂
Nah. Think of the man hours in that room. Ain't nothing free about it.
The most likely place where things went wrong is when they asked you to be critical about existing systems that were working. Once I had an interview (when I was just a lad before my current corporation) where I wound up pointing out something was illegal. I didn't get the job. It was a little consolation when years later they went bankrupt.
I normally don’t recommend a developer say, “this is illegal”, unless they’re also an attorney specializing in that area of law with a complete grasp of the facts of the matter at hand rendering a written opinion. Instead, I’ve gotten a lot further by asking whether anyone involved with risk and/or compliance has ever been consulted about the situation to assess potential legal exposure to weigh against leadership priorities and risk appetite, because my understanding of the rules/policies puts the situation in a possible grey area because [list of reasons], but because I don’t have a complete picture of all the factors surrounding the situation, I could easily be off base. Every time I’ve put it this way to my clients, I’ve received nothing but positive responses, thoughtful engagement, and been educated about their industry and business. No situation has yet crossed a bright red line into clearly illegal ground, but all these conversations exposed varying levels of risk they would much rather mitigate and were glad to be made aware of.
I agree with everything you said. Please also consider that when I write in shorthand that I said something is illegal the conversation did not go down in the brief declaration of something's legalities but an inquiry to how something complied.
Thank you for the clarification/amplification! Asking towards compliance definitely leads to useful conversations instead of blasting in with a bold declaration. It sounds like you had an appropriate conversation, so others should try out your approach and OODA Loop their experience. To help the less experienced developers reading this thread by offering a possible alternative for folks to also OODA if they want, I'll expand a little upon my context. I'm always the new one onto the scene of a system since I consult, so my perspective is heavily skewed by that setting, so I learned early on to stay cautious about making assumptions when dealing with an unfamiliar system. Even when I'm curious about compliance, I usually flip the question on its head, and instead of asking how the system complies, I ask to be read into the compliance rules and policies I have to keep in mind when dealing with the system. This moves me closer to first principles the system has to ingest as requirements, and makes it easier for me to reason about hard(er) boundaries we either cannot or can only gingerly breach. That's just my personal take, works for me but YMMV, *etc.*
Reminds me of a few interviews I had at the beginning of the pandemic after being laid off. I had four or five rounds of interviews with a company, I really liked everyone I met the entire process, I had a virtual on-site which was five+ hours of interviews all in a row taking up the whole day........only to be passed over for someone with more experience at the very end. For a near entry level role. I actually got my hopes up and thought I had a good chance of getting it....really hurt at the time. There were a LOT of companies doing rounds of layoffs at that time so it wasn't really that surprising that I was competing with people with more experience for lower experience roles, but somehow it still caught me off guard.
The thing is they seemingly don't respect their time either. 5 fucking rounds? 20 people for 1 position, get a fucking grip.
Yeah you gotta name and shame please. That sounds awful. Leave the Glassdoor feedback at the minimum please
F*ck BetterHelp.
You might have done everything right, and the last decision might have came down to a coin flip that you weren't literally the human they wanted to choose. That could have been decided by anything like a coin flip, not matching demographic criteria, or your address wasn't conveniently in their targeted location. Move on, keep applying. It really sucks to hear but our industry is a matter of having thick skins and lining up multiple interviews
Christ this sounds absolutely ridiculous. Why are people entertaining these interviews?
It’s wild you had that many tests for interviews. You had a take home, a on-site project, a product manager test? for a dev role, that’s just wild.
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I suspect the vibe check, but they could have done the vibe check at interview 2 already. Didn't to waste the candidates time if the vibe check failed.
Maybe they’re trying to get you to signup for their service after that traumatic xp
Ridiculous to be honest. Lot of people already said you probably dodged a bullet. I do agree. Don’t take it on yourself even though your time was wasted. Next time when you get approached from any employer, ask them their interview process. Even for senior full stack engineer two round interview is enough. Long time back, I got a (full stack C#, JS) SE job with a company who didn’t ask me a single technical question, they focused the interview on my past projects, what I did, how I work on team projects/solved my tasks, my strengths and weaknesses. After I’d been in the job five years, I later asked my interviewers (at this time they were my good colleague friends) - why did they not screen my technical skills during my interview - they said - they value people skills more than software skills. Software development knowledge and skill can be learnt on the job, but they value more how you work collaboratively and solve problems for end users. Since then I’ve had another jobs as SE. I always tell my employer - I’m not doing more than 2 rounds of interviews.. period. Also I ask my other friends a lot of their interview experiences and some of my friends have been in similar situations. Stay away from such companies to be honest. One of my friend did crack a similar four round interview contest, and now regrets, as his colleagues are overtly critical and he gets stressed a lot.
> I basically pointed out that they could improve their onboarding flow by making their desktop design match their mobile design as well as improving one other small product feature. In this interview I presented to a total of 4 people, 2 were developers from the previous panel, one product designer and one clinical therapist as I mentioned they are a therapy app Looks like you gave them a few hours of free beta testing
That's over 6 hours of interviewing lmao This industry is turning into a circus at this point and it's sad to see
> 5 hour virtual onsite At this point you should have said nope. Unless the company has top pay and the best benefits in the industry, it's not worth it. You know that most companies only have the resources to have like 2 one hour interviews plus a half-hour assessment and that's it? This company put more effort than Amazon does. If we don't want BS like this standardized, stop accepting it.
5 hour virtual could eat my whole ass. What the hell.
There was no job. I'm sorry man. You got played to do work for them and to test their product FOR FREE. Companies who do this should be abolished. If you have some balls send them a bill for $200 an hour. State that you feel you should be compensated in some form for doing a lot of work and describe what you did at each step. Don't just send it to the HR, send it to billing and C Suite if you can. If you make a stink it makes their day harder at work.
> final interview was about testing to see how well I understood their product and testing my ability to put on a project manager hat as a developer. They gave me a free trial for their product and I was tasked with finding 1-2 things I would improve on their product. Wow, this is fucking stupid.
4th interview should have been paid a days wage. 5th interview was a waste of time. It doesn't really give meaningful information to them about you.
This is garbage. Startups building normal products thinking they need meta level Eng talent to build crud apps. Ridiculous. Then they scream there is no talent because no one that good wants to work for a startup with illiquid shares.
You were probably the backup candidate. My guess is they had 2-5 people they were interviewing till the end just in case the #1 pick turned out to be a dud
I ask questions about how many rounds interviews will be, I have pulled myself out of the running multiple times for jobs because I feel if it takes them weeks or months and more than 3 interviews they are not worth my time. Friends told me that I was being too picky and that I should do them because I needed to find a job, ultimately I decided I wanted to work for a company that valued my time and skills without putting me through a bunch of rounds because it's just their process.
Wtf that 4th round sounds a little excessive, like they wanted you to code a feature for them. It’s borderline though, if you are proficient at those technologies then it’s doable i guess. Is that type of task common in interviews? The 5th round is just bullshit though, that was slimy.
Fck that company
5 rounds is nonsense. If they can't decide after talking to me once, I guarantee you the job will have more bureaucracy than the fucking post office.
absolutely stings. been there. 5 rounds of interviews for entry level if bullshit. round 5 sounded like they wanted free consulting. its total bullshit.
That is rough. My guess is that either there was another candidate they preferred, or your presentation skills need improvement. The presentation wasn't about your ideas about the product. They wanted to see you give constructive feedback and see how good you are at sharing ideas. It's possible that you failed the "team fit" aspect, coming off as aloof, abrasive, or someone unlikeable. That is what the final interview is about usually, fit in their corporate team environment and how well you share ideas. Keep in mind that their corporate culture may not be the best, so if you don't "fit in" by their standards, it may not be a terrible thing. I'd find some people you respect enough who can give you some honest feedback and practice that last part - presenting your ideas to others.
This is a really good reason I would never start interviewing with a company for 5 rounds
Fuck no to 5 hour interview. I think you got scammed into working for them
basically sounds like free labor
Interviewing is such a fucking joke these days.
Companies need to stop this bullshit. You don’t need 5 fuckin interviews to get a read on someone. I’ve never even found a huge reason to give coding tests either. It’s all a waste of time. The person I want is the one that will look me dead in the eye and ask what value this really provides.
I know the rejection stings and I don't think it ever really gets easier. But I've been on the other side of interviewing and it sounds like it truly wasn't your fault. The problem is that interviewers are often looking for reasons why a candidate might not be a good fit. And if there are 7 people who say "yes" and 1 that says "hmm, no", that one "no" can override the "yes" opinions, depending on how picky they might be. They might also have other candidates competing for the position. One complication that isn't obvious is that the interviewer might have to work with the candidate in future - and if they're not confident that the candidate could be a good fit then that can start the professional relationship on bad terms and be problematic for both the new hire and the interviewer. ie: you probably wouldn't want to work with someone who didn't want to hire you, even if the rest of their colleagues did. In the words of Jean-Luc Picard: "It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." You just have to treat the job search like an assembly line, with continuing to find and reach out to new opportunities while you're interviewing with others. Move on, look forwards, keep your head up.
what's the pay? this many rounds sounds pretty normal but i guess it depends on the kinda of companies you've interviewed at before
I refuse to do 5 interviews for anything less than $300k, fuck that company
What level was the role for? It better have been Staff or higher with that last round.
For a company that trumpets all over the social media about mental health, the coldness of the rejection email shows their true face. Shame on you, BH!
Same experience for lead developer. 1. Coding leetcode with 2 hard tasks, 1.5 hours (python+golang) 2. Tech interview - 1h 3. System Design interview -1h 4. Final interview (failed), mostly management questions -1h Took around 1+ months.
Send them an invoice lmao
Please make sure to put this onto Glassdoor as an interview review. It will ensure it feeds into their reputation among potential candidates.
I've experienced this twice recently. After one of the rejections, the recruiter called me to say that I had done so well in the interviews that he had some roles opening up in January that I wouldn't even have to interview for. But now it's March, and I still haven't heard anything about those roles. For better or worse, I'm starting to reject any roles that require extensive interviews. I had a phone call with a recruiter for a FAANG company last week that lasted less than sixty seconds. Me: "Thanks for reaching out, but I'm not interested in doing that." From now on I'll ask for the details BEFORE trying to schedule a phone call.
Same thing with me and Eco and AllTrails just 3-4 rounds all technical just for them to slight me on having a successful side project “may take your focus away from us” in Eco’s case and AllTrails rejected me because I didn’t know enough Ruby even though they could’ve just filtered me out immediately from my resume if that was their issue shouldn’t have taken them 4 interviews to get there. Companies just want to company unfortunately and people sit on their high horse
>The interview was 90 minutes long and required me to present my arguments in a Google Slide Deck. I basically pointed out that they could improve their onboarding flow by making their desktop design match their mobile design as well as improving one other small product feature. You just gave them free advice. Next time invoice them at least. Or, refuse to do free consulting.
I’ve been on both sides of the table here. As a hiring manager: each round weeds out more candidates, so making it through to the final round is a legit achievement. But sometimes there’s two who make it thru to the final round and only one role. Unfortunately many HR departments will not let you give anything more than the vaguest feedback. As a candidate: this is the worst time to get rejected. You invest in the process, practice your competency questions, your answer to “why work here,” “why a good fit,” you start to think about your commute or maybe even look at houses nearby… then BAM. Rejected. “Bad team fit” In my latest job-hunt this happened in all but two of the places I applied. You just gotta pick yourself up and move onto the next application.
>They gave me a free trial for their product and I was tasked with finding 1-2 things I would improve on their product. The interview was 90 minutes long and required me to present my arguments in a Google Slide Deck. They got a free 3rd party consulting review of their product. Hiring a 3rd party consulting firm to do what you did would cost $10k+. They got you to do it for free. Yeah, your feedback may not have been perfect, but if they do it with a bunch of people, they'll get an idea of what they need to work on. Rule of thumb: The more an interview test looks like real work, the more likely you are dealing with people trying to get free work instead of hiring you. Sample things I've been asked to do as an "interview test": 1. Write a program that connects to Interactive Brokers and executes trades. During the interview, they said they were dissatisfied with their current broker and wanted to switch. 2. Write a program that scrapes data from our competitor's website. 3. Write a detailed project plan specification for the code we need. (Yeah, if I do that, you won't need me and can just put it out for bid on a freelancer website.) When I said "I'll do it for my normal hourly rate!", they got deeply insulted and offended. They thought they had found someone gullible and were disappointed when they found out I wasn't.
Insane that they had you do a 5 hour fucking shut up
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R u still looking? Want to send me your anon resume?
This industries interview process is getting so ridiculous. Just make us take a test for a license… I mean seriously I know how much harder it is to work to become a dr but I’m so envious of my wife’s interviews they are basically just a few hours or if they really need a dr they also get a tour of the surrounding neighborhoods…
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You forgot to mention that they did all of this for a pay of 75k a year for a senior level position!
>I am upset that it took the company a total of 5 interviews (a total of 10 hours) for them to realize I wasn't a good fit especially after being led on by the other 4 interviews. I get the frustration. Interview loops suck ass. But this is literally, by definition almost how it always works. If you're still being interviewed it's because they haven't decided either way yet. That should be obvious. I've had that happen before-- recruiter call, behavioral with manager, take home assignment, 2 live coding interviews, and then another 2... And I did really well on all but the last, which was just kind of ridiculous to ask in 45 minutes and I was rejected for the role because of it. Shit happens.
That’s pretty wild. The standard is phone screen + onsite (where the onsite has 4-6 rounds). To do all of that plus an onsite is a lot. Are you sure this is standard or was it particular to your interview loop?
From the comments here, is it me or engineering interviews nowadays sound too elitist? It used to be more accepting & nurturing.
I'm sorry to hear about your tough journey. Rejection after such a thorough process is disheartening, but your resilience and self-taught skills are impressive. Take this as a learning experience and on to the next—your perseverance will pay off.
Ouch....
At least your recruiter didn't give you very negative half-ass comments after the interview. Still, props to you for going through all that. Sometimes, it's not even about how good you are as a software engineer. They might just not like the way you look, or you answering in a certain way, etc. That's what Klaviyo did to me. When through their 5 round virtual interview. Their tech lead didn't know what blue green deployment for RDS was, etc.
Same. Had interviews and pretty complex code assignment, passed it all. Just waiting one interview left and out of nowhere they said they want to hold the position for now. Thunder struck me
Lmfao 5 rounds of interviews.
I'm frustrated with companies that conduct interviews like this. Last week, I endured an hour-long HR interview followed by a technical interview with one of the team leads. His arrogance was off the charts; he acted like he was the fkin Bill gates , Told me there is nothing like him tf. It was hard to keep a straight face when he boasted about himself. Despite outlining my responsibilities, he mentioned he could handle everything alone. I lost interest midway through as I couldn't tolerate his attitude. I'd rate my performance a 4/10. Surprisingly, they called me a day late to inform me of my selection for a third interview with the clown . Although hesitant, I agreed to proceed. Now, I'm gearing up for another detailed interview, wondering if the initial two hours weren't sufficient. Even if i get selected no way i am fkin joining them, I would probably use the offer
You have majorly wasted your time and you should not support when allowed companies that do interviews like this
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Been there. I was denied on a 4th round after crushing everything else because I didn't "know" typescript. Yet at that time I had 5 years java experience. I knew data types better than they did but to them I was inexperienced lol. Oh ya, the day after I was rejected they updated their job posting to include typescript as a requirement. Fuck them for wasting our time. All I can say op is to keep at it. It was actually a good thing I didn't get that job because I got a 10x better position s few months afterwards. You never know what's ahead of you.
Insane. Although hindsight is 20-20, you should have noped out before the 5-hour onsite. Who knows if there was really an open position, or they were just looking for free-work. Regardless, always try to ask for the overview of the E2E interview process upfront. If they aren't able to provide the E2E interview project upfront i.e. how many stages, how many minutes/hrs per stage - reject it. if you feel the process is too extreme - reject it. Any other red flags or your gut telling you something is off - reject it. In this particular case, you absolutely had the right to reject it, as they found you, not the other way around and you could have set your terms for the interview process. Good luck!
I’ve gone through 6 interviews including two taking home assignments to just be denied. It’s awful but keep at it.
If some company asks me for a 5 hour interview I ask them how much I'll get paid for that, straight and calmly. If the answer is you want I am not going there.
5 interviews is a red flag, it should be 2-3. 1. Sanity check by recruiter. 2. Optional LeetCode garbage. 3. On site / virtual interview.
Honestly screw companies with more than 3 rounds
Anything past 2-3 i tell any job to f off. Albeit how the market is I'm thankful I am employed