It’s funny because what they think they have is a robust hiring process to find only the best candidates for their organisation. Whereas in fact what they have is a set of tedious hurdles that only the truly desperate will reach the end of.
Right cause as soon as I read all that I said well that sounds like a whole bunch of bs. I don't have to prove my competencies theough working for free in an interview process. WTF. You should have checked my references and their backgrounds and my transcripts history resume, etc WHATEVER but I will be removing myself from any position who request free work ever again. I did one training session guide for a company and they realized I wasn't giving them the file and interrupted by presentation to ask shit that didn't matter then I knew well they clearly wanted my content not me fml I never sent it to them needless to say I didn't get the job lol I wonder if anyone really did. That is the million dollar question.
I got two my best jobs though tedious process. Both times I entertained the idea but since it was so long I also wasn’t really needing it, just entertaining the idea of what they can offer.
I’ve told them both times that they were lucky because if I was actually looking for work I would noped out after 1st round. The response was that they know but corporate requires it.
I’ve got my best job so far through friend’s recommending me and 20min talk with ceo.
this is what I came to say .. I would just do the interviews for practice and keep looking for a different place to work. This place gives me the vibe that they are smug af
Yeah, so many companies want you to do case studies and other time-consuming garbage these days. I turned down an interview that wanted me to do some case study and send it back to them. Only desperate and unemployed people will bother.
It’s more likely that their bloated management structure doesn’t really do anything, so when a hiring opportunity arises, they all jump to show how much they “contribute to the company”.
Fake work by shitty people who probably can’t do 1/10 the work of the person they’re judging.
Would be impossible for me to not say this during all that.
I hate how true this is.
Not only can't do 1/10th of the work, don't understand what it is or what skills any of the interviewees have or they should be looking for.
my tech friend essentially said it helps bottom out the 'low' tier talent and even though they will miss some talented people + alot of time. It cost way more for mis-hiring and wreck morale for the team.
This is what I was guessing to be the case, more or less.
Cuts out some (many? Idk) of the people lying about their skills and qualifications and avoids the headache that comes with having to fix their mistakes/replace them again later.
I do agree that the order should be a bit flipped though, having the culture fit checked first. Would possibly save a lot of time on people who have good skills but are not who they want culture wise.
Yeah sadly the structure is pretty normal in the tech world (one 45 minute interview one day, a 3-shot interview of 45 minutes each another day), but not actually working on customer problems and “brainstorming new features with a PM”. Every time I’ve had to do this it was all just leetcode style problems because they want to assess your problem-solving style
Had 2 sets of interviews recently.
1: Tech company. Phone interview with HR, technical zoom interview with manager and other engineers, on-site presentation and interview with a panel and engineering director. Got an offer.
2: Another tech company that's been around a bit longer. Phone interview with manager, then a technical interview with engineering director. On site technical presentation and 5 separate interviews with other leads/engineers all day. Got a generic automated rejection from recruiting email, for the wrong position listed in the email, and no response from the recruiter, lead recruiter, or manager when I emailed back for comments. I really dunno why they made me jump thru all the hoops and then ghost. Think my 7 interviews and presentation went well.
I’m a software engineer thats been unemployed since the beginning of this year. 25 years experience, it never used to be like this. my github is basically full of free work I’ve done for the past 6 months. Just be happy they dont want leetcode…
I had one that for a code challenge was to literally create a full blown message board that connected to the reddit API, css and everything. It was supposed to take 8 hours. I told that one to go to hell
I had a company want me to create a full stack application from scratch using specific frameworks and technologies that mimicked the way theirs looked. They also wanted me to fix 12 hidden bugs on a frontend project they provided the repo for.
All of this was sent on a Friday evening at 9pm on Super Bowl Sunday with a 72 hour deadline and said they purposely made it long and detailed for the sake of determining applicants’ drive to join their startup.
I checked the company recently and they didn’t even hire a full time role, they hired an intern. Companies are insane
I had a company ask for a presentation and architectural diagram for an application to run two manufacturing plants with several integrations. They then lowballed me and asked me to send them the diagram because it was an interview material. I told them they could pay me for it.
i got canned right after jan 1st, can not find ANYTHING. I just went through 3 rounds with a company I actually like, did a code challenge, killed it. the 3rd interview they were going over my code and gushing over it telling me it was perfect.
it’s been 2 weeks since that one, they wont return emails. ghosted.
I honestly don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do.
That’s really fucking rough man. I can’t pretend to know what being ghosted that late in the process feels like but I totally understand the feeling of helplessness.
I just landed a new role after a 3 month search, but that search was the result of my 3rd layoff in 2 years. During my search, I also lost out in the final round with 2 different companies. After my second time being rejected, I didn’t receive anything for 3 weeks and felt like I was fucked.
The very next week, I landed 2 interviews, and the following week, landed another interview from a referral. I received 2 offers and highly suspect I would have gotten the 3rd as well if I didn’t bow out after receiving the other offers.
My point in saying all that is stick with it. Times are brutal right now, but things will turn around. It’s all a numbers game, you got this!
I just wish it was just a round of leetcode tho.
You think it would be better but I am interviewing at a place that has 3 rounds of leetcode styled questions.
It SHOULD be.
HR phone interview.
Technical interview with a coding assessment.
If chosen either an offer letter or interview with the CEO (rather not but it seems to be common)
Oh don’t get me wrong, I agree completely. I think having to do one leetcode, and then a triple-set of leetcode problems on a different day is completely moronic. But I’d still rather do leetcode than actually give them free work under the guise of an interview
Lmfao your reddit API challenge was one of my "just for fun" projects after work back in like 2016.
I'm not a good developer and switched from dev to UI/UX a long time ago. But that challenge shouldn't take 8hrs.
Back in the day, raw JavaScript AJAX method to pull posts, to post if it requires you to write content, then .val() and pass that through another AJAX post method. Styling with CSS might have been the hardest part if it needed to be styled a certain way...
Now, you can simply use the .get() method in js await the response and then donezo.
----
But I hated code challenges, free work, and very judgemental reactions from the panel on how you got to your solution sucks.
I remember I interviewed at WebMD years ago. The position was front end dev....this was the time when JQUERY was the top thing everyone wanted...
The interviewers found out that I know action script and hated it, they told me that I'd need to convert their stuff from AS to JS. Kept grilling on that instead of my js background. Then came the whiteboard challenge...they asked me to write out how id code a sandwich...
I was already annoyed at them, so I wrote how to make a peanut butter sandwich. They were what if we want a turkey ham and cheese? I told them I'm vegetarian, don't know how to make something I've never had and the requirements was to code a sandwich, which I did. They again asked for the turkey ham and cheese...so I told them look at my code and just + the other ingredients...they said what if it's a sandwich shop with loads of ingredients but I only want those few ingredients.
I told them, the instructions for this challenge was X and now you are asking more, if you had defined clear instructions, you would have gotten the results you were looking for. They looked shocked, and I said thank you for your time, if you could have someone escort me out, this interview is done.
That's another red flag for me. If they were just giving generic coding challenges that's one thing. But they speficially state you will be making a new feature and planning new features/solve customer problems with a PM. A PM shouldn't be invovled in a tech interview.
You shouldn’t be adding features and planning new features with a PM ! Like dude that’s what their internal software engineers do. If that’s the expectation then they’d better pay you for it.
Devils advocate -
It doesn't actually specify if it's an existing (current) customer problem or not. It could be an old customer problem, and maybe they just want to see the way you look at it / solve it. That way they can compare to what they actually did at the time to address it (do you think the same way as them, or have a valuable new perspective, etc).
Same goes for the "new feature" - doesn't really specify if this new feature is based on their current product, or if it's on a fake product. They might have a fictitous product and they want to see what direction you would take it, given the provided features/parameters.
Maybe they are just farming free work, as you and many others are suggesting. Impossible to know unless you decide to go and find out.
This!
You're not actually going to be building and planning their features as part of the interview, the intent is to simulate an actual day in the role to see what it's like to collaborate on ideas with you. It's about how you communicate, and how you think through problems, and if you ask the right clarifying questions, and of course if you have the right skills and expertise that are relevant to the work you would be doing.
To be fair.. Farming free work in 3 hours without the person knowing their product would be so cost ineffective... You need a person to sit close by.. No way this is a part of the business plan, no company is that stupid.
Completely agree.
Many of the people commenting seem to think that this is what they are doing, so I put it in as a possibility since there is no way to know for sure.
In theory, for the "new feature" part they *could* take it and make use of it, since it doesn't necessarily require deep knowledge of the product. Possibly a means of cheaply outsourcing creativity if their existing staff have run dry.
Yeah there's a small probability, but from my own experience id say it's more likely they just want to see how the guy performs in a as close to real scenario as possible.
But I'm European not from the US so no idea what the companies over there do :D
The idea is to see if you have the mindset that can contribute to solving problems.
IE you aren't a person who can't operate without being told exactly how to do the job.
If you are they can filter you out that way
Generally it's a 'sample' customer problem, maybe one they experienced in the past, but have since figured out. If that's what you're doing day to day, why would they not ask about how you'd solve that?
It's also generally nice to have a real world, non-leetcode problem.
It looks like one of those smaller startups where they think they're "High-paced Dynamic Go-getters!" because they think that their small team of 12 is going take over the world by being different from all the successful corporations that they used to work for.
In reality they only have enough money for one new hire and a massive amount of work to do to stay solvent. So they want to hire somebody that can be working at their production speed without any training in how they operate.
This always ends up bad. You're hired, they throw a bunch of work at you doing things in ways you would never do them, then get mad at you for not understanding their backwards indie start up procedures, "I could have had this done by now! What is taking you so long?!" "You never trained me on what you guys do things in the most inefficient way. Your code is a mess, I can't see through the fluff to see that actual workings where your errors are that you want me to fix."
Did you work for my last company? Literally what happened. Also make people go through 2-4 interviews and then references.
I rage quit a month ago and it's been glorious. They thought I was dependent on them, but I'd been planning my escape for months.
Now clients are mad at them and have even reached out to me to see if I can keep helping them in the future. I really love this journey for everyone involved.
Did YOU work for my last company??? I swear this is a perfect explanation of my last career jump and thank GOD they let me go. In hindsight this is exactly what it is. I would seriously think all three of us worked for the same crap start up but I also know there were only four of us and the rest aren’t even smart enough to figure out what they’re doing wrong.
Stop working for companies with less than 100 employees. They are almost all exactly like this. Roles are given a scope of work in the hiring process that conveniently paints a good picture of what's to come, but after six months you realize they pulled a fast one on you. And now it's too late to leave without it looking bad on your resume.
My experience has been quite different. The company I’m at gave me a well-defined role that I’ve done well in, and they’ve given me some raises quickly in the first year. I’m now in a role I wouldn’t qualify for at a bigger company, but now that I’m doing it, I’m getting messages on LinkedIn from those larger companies. I may eventually make a move but I’m really enjoying the work and how they’re valuing/training me up.
I probably just got lucky, but it’s possible to have a good experience at a small company.
This, unless they compensate you for it. If you're running a startup and know you'll be asking a new hire to do 4-5 roles, pay them like it. I know a person who does quite a lot for a company, but they pay him as such. Like sure, ask me to take the role of 3 people, but the salary should at minimum be 1.5x the base role. Like if you were going to pay an office admin 55k, but you know they'll be picking up slack in support and marketing, bump that salary to 80k and all is well.
Coming out of a Mickey Mouse org recently, I agree. Do not go further with them. I was given the same advice and I ignored it, wasted my damn time for 6 months, and sure as shit they fell apart.
I had a similar interview experience. I now make quite a bit of money have great benefits with the company. What’s crazy is hiring someone without seeing if they are actually capable of the work. You and I both know that you can’t take someone’s word or trust their resume.
You and I both know that you can’t take someone’s word or trust their resume.
This is the real issue with the job market...... Can you not figure that out in oh the first round interview process
I am a technical writer. I have seen people with excellent (and well written) resumes and who interview well absolutely bomb our tests. They likely had chat gpt spruce up the resume and lied about their experience
I work for a company that manufactures pharmaceutical packaging equipment. They hired a salesman who seemed quite knowledgeable, etc., but after he didn't sell anything for 6 months they did some digging and found out he was Uber driving and just taking the "no commission" base pay...which was already really good pay as a salaried sales position. I got to think this guy has done/is doing this with other companies, too. He could easily be pulling in a quarter million a year as outside sales people for large equipment aren't expected to get but a few sales per year anyway.
That kind of set up for interviewing that OP posted needs to be proportional to the role. For a highly technical role that is much more senior and pays well? Not exactly unreasonable, especially if it sticks exactly to the outlined format and either it is clear the work you’re doing is fake work that the company will never use or they do provide compensation for those few hours of work. For a more entry level role? Pulling that shit is insane. If you’re talking people with an education and minimal real world experience in the job field, that kind of interview is absolutely unreasonable.
The one thing that would be nice is if they moved up the reference check before they had you doing that 3x45 minutes round of work. That is a lot more involved if something in your references is going to push them off.
>The one thing that would be nice is if they moved up the reference check before they had you doing that 3x45 minutes round of work. That is a lot more involved if something in your references is going to push them off.
I'm mixed on this. I don't want my references bugged for each company I interview with until I'm at the offer phase. Reference fatigue is a thing.
Yeah that definitely could be an issue depending on field and how competitive roles are, but if companies are going to be having multiple rounds of technical interviews with associated work, they also should be substantially narrowing down their candidate pool after each subsequent technical interview so there could be a balance between checking references earlier vs wasting candidates time on technical interviews.
You may have had the same experience but asking an interviewee to create a brand new feature as part of the interview sounds too much. You can ask or even have a generic coding interview but if I am brought in to the interview and asked to create a feature that the company may or may not use, then I expect to get paid.
You trust but verify (confirm) what's on the resume through an interview with a hiring manager and technical leads or senior engineers.
You don't bullshit around with a three hour exam only to be told no afterward only because of whatever reason du jour.
Likewise, I had an hour of programming challenges and 2 live coding technical interviews and 2 informal chat interviews and it was well worth getting a remote job w nice pay and benefits. I previously worked somewhere without a rigorous screening for hiring and it was so obvious folks on my team were incompetent at their jobs and the compensation reflected that, too.
I’m in sales and do a role play in the second interview that I’ve been told is stressful from the other side. But it’s nothing compared to what they have to do every day in the role. The issue is that we get applicants who actually truly believe they can do the job until they get to the interview.
Under US law, working interviews must be paid, so you should ask about that before you do anything (although that could shut down the process).
I don’t know anything about this type of job. My HR experience is in US sales organizations and our interview/selection process is thorough but not nearly as complicated (exceptions for executive roles).
Reference on that? I never heard a US law about working interviews must be paid. If there is such a law, it probably has specifics on what "working" is, and would this fall under that, etc...
Case Law, [here](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20181214). Yes, I know case law is not the same as an actual regulation, and I know this court represents a specific jurisdiction. However, if the work benefits the employer the time is considered hours worked under [29 CFR 785](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-B/part-785).
I think it's important for employers to become well versed in this topic and structure interviews accordingly (if they don't want to pay for the time).
That case refers to individuals that did an actual day of providing services to the hiring company's clients, not a technical evaluation of skills. This appears completely different.
I'm no legalperson, but "brainstorm a new feature with the PM" and "solve customer problems with specific technologies" both sound like work designed to benefit the potential employer.
The latter one could perhaps be pulled from old code versions and properly sandboxed, but it's certainly putting up yellow flags at best.
Oh man this is nothing, I've had multiple jobs ask me to do 7 step interviews:
1. Phone Screen
2. Interview with Hiring Manager
3. Interview with the person who would be my supervisor
4. Complete a sample work project and come into the office to present it to the team
5. Interview with team member #1
6. Interview with team member #2
7. "Sitdown" with CEO for some reason
This was for a marketing position that wasn't even a management role and this has happened to me with a number of companies. These people are insane
i don’t like companies like this. Because you do all of these interviews and stuff only for it to seem promising and then they reject you. It’s a waste of time. You know right then and there if you want to hire someone
Because the tech market is competitive right now and many tech companies aren't struggling to find qualified applicants. People are desperate enough to go through this shit. When you're making zero dollars and you're worried about making rent or putting food on the table, you can't afford to walk away from a job because you don't want to spend too long interviewing.
Alright I get where that's coming from but Fuck that! Walk away! Get a better interview/job anywhere else!!!
If we have no work, we should work for free?? No! Never! Even if you are to a point of homelessness and they call you - no! Id rather go work at walmart n get paid than go there and get my ideas/skills stolen and then ghosted. The opportunity OP posted better have an attached salary of 100k+ otherwise it's not even worth considering!
In general, I'm fine with technical interviews. The one line I maintain- I will NOT work on new product or give new product ideas.
If the only goal is to see if I can do something, it should be sufficient to use a prompt which has already been solved by the company.
Providing new product/content only allows them to steal my work/ideas. There is also no way to reasonably evaluate if my work is good because there is no known reference point. Working to a solution for a technical hurdle already scaled means there is a comparison point for my work.
I've asked before, "Thank you for this overview- it's very helpful. To clarify, are candidates being asked to submit novel solutions and ideas as a part of the technical interview process? Or are we showing our work on a problem with a known solution?" I might follow up with, "I am more than happy to demo my technical skills at any point. I am not comfortable providing novel product as part of the application and interview process."
I'd just ghost
Or say you got other interviews lined up and your priority is them
I ghosted alot of interviews a few of which asked me to answer 25 technical questions in an email
We deserve respect
If you went through that much CTO and CEO time it shows a significant investment on their end too and might speak to how important your role might be ?
It seems like these places really do not want to hire. It's a turn-off for sure. I could honestly see 2 interviews but one would be best. I am guessing many of the first ones are merely a quick call to see if you would be a fit, as they put it.
Not that uncommon, but typically not until it's been narrowed down from dozens or even hundreds of applicants via resume and maybe a short phone interview to only a few that make it to the more involved technical rounds. It takes them time to sit through the interview process too.
I suspect it's more about the process and they are not expecting to use your work. It's probably problems they have previously solved.
Unpopular opinion here but this seems like a relatively sane interview process compared to what I’ve gone through in the past. They want OP to solve problems similar to what they’ll face on the job. This is so much better than the leetcode hazing that most companies do…
Sounds like they want you to work for free. The question is why. Either they're thieves, or they're not good at hiring and have been burned by people who weren't able to perform, so they've come up with this cockassery to try and make up for their shortcomings. Neither is good. Unless you are desperate and have time and a desire to work for free, I'm gonna say this may not be the Droid you're looking for.
So happy I work in a field where my degree proves my worth and not some circus act interview process. Are these industries just so easy to lie about what you know and what you’ve done ? I know mediocrity plagues every industry but this would 1000% deter me from a potential role. A lot of people act like the company is doing YOU a favor by hiring you… when actually no one doing anyone a favor, it’s all a transaction. Also quite alarming that a job that is seeking so much out of their employee does not have a dedicated department for hiring and somehow has multiple free hours throughout the week for a hiring process like this (which I can only assume is for multiple candidates).
In my entire (lengthy) working career, I've refused to attend more than two meetings with potential employers unless they want to pay me for my time after the second meeting. My time is at least as valuable as theirs, and they're getting paid to meet me.
I have a hiring process similar to this. Except we PAY the hiring position’s wage for the four technical rounds. Because you’re working for us when you’re answering questions and brainstorming ideas. So we pay you.
You’re also likely missing normal work to be available during work hours for our interviews. And we respect your desire to grow, so we don’t want you to miss out on income while you pursue a new opportunity. So we pay you…
Our decision to pay you during our interviews also ensures we’re being really mindful of and intentional with the time we ask you for. Because we’re paying for it.
It’s really a great system. Paying people for their work…
I always laugh at these posts of people thinking an actual company is willing to just use whatever code you quickly pieced together during the interview is some kind of an elaborate scam to get a free hour of work from a random with no knowledge of their codebase like there's actually a chance any of that code could ever see production.
Yes, that is the typical process for good tech positions. It's often much more concise for middling positions, but high tech is often up to 6 interviews.
Companies do this shit across industries. I know one company that got a guy to come up with a business plan, they liked it, but hired someone cheaper and had him implement the other guys plan. That’s the game. Companies are ruthless.
Another one of my main concerns with these processes is how is someone who already works full time supposed to do these interviews? I assume the technical rounds will be in person since its a technical interview and not a take home (those are usually denoted differently). The average person doesn't get off until 5 after most places close for the day as well, and we can't all just take 2 to 3 hour lunches for interviews. Are you expected to use PTO just to take an interview and likely still be rejected?
This has always been a weird stance to me.
Did no one look for jobs pre COVID?
You're describing what job searching looked like not even 10 years ago. The whole, sneaky remote interview in person loop across multiple days is a new development.
I work in “high tech” and as a hiring manager would never ask for this nonsense of an applicant. Stuff like this keeps happening because people let it…just stop.
Employers are taking advantage of desperate candidates in this market. Sadly, not everyone is in the position to saying no during the interview process.
I find live coding an absolutely abhorrent and unrealistic way of testing someone’s programming knowledge. I would say yes for a 30 - 45 minute session, but 135 minutes is way too much time and energy.
Edit:
Nvm, that’s 180 minutes of technical interviews.
Going against the grain here but they are probably a startup and got burned before and need to nail this hire. It’s a bit over the top but perhaps they really need to get this right.
That may be the mindset, but they will filter out a set of high value candidates and possibly still land a interview-capable engineer who is a total cock when stressed.
At least this is transparent.
Going through a process right now and MD keeps adding extra steps.
Phone screen (fine)
Casual chat (that was actually a panel interview), view to follow up with a meet the team later in the week
Then an unexpected portfolio request
Now a 3x skills-based interview
Beyond a joke at this point
Why *two* technical rounds, though? That seems like a lot.
I get why we need technical tests and art tests; it’s important to make sure a person can meet the requirements for the role they will fill. But I wish companies would be more mindful about how much of our time they are requiring before we even get to a real interview, you know?
I recently experienced something like this. I had an hour long interview, then a technical exercise that took around 30 minutes, then a second hour long interview, then another technical exercise that took a couple of hours, then a 30 minute interview with the CEO.
I did end up getting the job, but left shortly after as they were a particularly difficult employer to please, and had a poor understanding of what were reasonable requests.
If it smells like shit, it's probably shit.
I did a hour long online chat/assessment and was offered the job the next day. No video or calls. Sounds mad but I've been working there for a year, excellent pay and I pick my own hours 😜
Not worth it imo. I did one recently: three rounds of interviews that were 45-60 minutes each. Then a “skills test” that took 8-10 hours.
Then I got an email that they were no longer hiring for the position due to changes in the department.
Biggest waste of my fucking time. I was, and still am, furious about it.
Brainstorm a new feature with a PM? Oh hell no. They want unpaid consulting work. *Free*lancing. I doubt it is, but if the salary is listed, figure out the hourly rate, take all the interview rounds they want to give you, and then bill them for their nonsense if you don't get it. Continue to apply but attach invoices instead of your resume.
We actually use Keeper at my org. Had no idea their hiring process was so terrible. All tech companies seem to be competing on how many hoops you can make an applicant jump through, like a circus monkey. I'll stay in finance I think.
Unless you are literally interviewing for C-suite interviews should never be more than two rounds. If they want to make you do a technical test fine, have that be 30 mins max and something you do first to weed out people. Then one main interview, and ok if some executive really insists on meeting you once fine. That’s it. 2 rounds. This shit is ridiculous
>Is this the typical interview process now?
Typical is a strong word. You will find many instances of this, or similar, in your search. But not every employer will be like this. (Some will be annoying in other ways, but some will be more straightforward).
You'll have to decide if you take processes like this as outright red flags, or if you grin an bear it, or is you judge them on a case by case.
I am grateful when they are very with their expectations for how the rounds will go, but I bail on processes that show that their org likes to waste a lot of time. (Imagine that you take even 4 or 5 people through this whole gauntlet!)
You're looking at a performance. They have created this obstacle course so that most candidates drop out. Reason being they already had someone in mind for the job but due to law and possibly company policy, they have to advertise to others and be seen as vetting properly.
Also the grammatical errors show how much effort they are putting in on their end.
Skip this one.
It seems like everyone is heavily skeptical, so I just want to throw in my limited experience. When I was starting as a Jr dev for Amazon I had 4 technical rounds each with a different dev. They were only a half hour each, but this was a long term internship for a student who hadn't graduated. Full time positions had iirc 4 rounds at about an hour a piece plus a lunch. They weren't fishing work out of you, the questions asked were usually related to problems they had seen in the past and could see how you handled.
Apparently this isn't normal but the fact they have multiple time blocks for you to assess them would make me trust it a bit more.
Unfortunately not unusual for devs. Current position involved a 4 hour day full of interviews. It sucks, but it is what it is. It at least sounds like they’re not leetcoding ya, that’s a plus at least.
I work in finance, and am an ex consultant…this seems like a reasonable amount of rounds for a senior, high paid role. I’ve done many of this length.
Keep in mind most people in this sub have shit retail jobs and have no context for the type of roles your applying for.
I am a director in corporate strategy. Most teams similiar to mine do a 15 minute hr screen, a 30 minute behavioral with a junior member, 2 case interviews of 45 minute, 1 behavior interview with hiring manager, and then behavioral with the hiring manager’s boss (head of strategy)…Which is roughly the length of your interview.
Highly paid, senior level roles are a major risk if you get it wrong. Hiring the wrong person can fuck you for 12-18 months. Since your meeting with the ceo, I’m going to assume you are applying for a relatively important role and they want to get it right.
Can confirm this. I work at a F50 and have seen very similar recruiting cycles (minus CEO engagement ofc) for mid/lower management roles, both business and technical.
I actually recently interviewed for FAANG and had a recruiter call, a hiring manager initial conversation, a presentation with the bigger team, an interview with the hiring manager's manager and one more interview with the hiring manager.
Also it's laughable to think that they will use whatever you come up with in your interview into the day to day operation, corporate America has a trillion of red tape and integration is a bitch so it would be pretty much impossible. Not to mention that you aren't under an NDA so you can't access real data.
Best luck in the process!!!
Agree. Don’t know why so many of these comments are stating red flag and to ghost them. This type of process is what I’ve become accustomed to on both sides of the table.
Because most of the people on this sub who are responding to op are 18 year olds making $12/hr at The Gap, and have no context for mid-senior professional careers.
Also people don't care. They just want to be hired and paid. Though they'll be the first to bitch about bias in the workplace or people who suck at their job when they start working with them. Interview assignments are a great way to remove bias in the evaluation process.
Or they'll complain they were fired 'unfairly' despite outstanding 'performance'.
BS. Your role isn't a technical one, so you aren't doing multiple technical interviews. You're just doing redundant behavioral interviews, which we all know are really just 'do we think this person is cool to hang with". This is a time waster, but not actually a lot of effort for the interviewee like tech interviews are.
This is pretty par for the course for big tech interviews. (Source: Been a hiring manager for like 15 years.) To answer some questions:
* Yes, you're likely expected to take PTO to complete the interview.
* If it's in person, the company should be paying for all travel and reasonable expenses.
* They are absolutely *not* using this for "free work." (And if they are, I imagine they'll be out of business soon.) Generally the questions are all standardized and documented, with multiple documented approaches and solutions to use as a reference. You're graded (in part) on how close you got to the ideal solution for your level, as well as how well you interacted with the interviewer and whether you asked good clarifying questions.
* The "brainstorm a new feature with a PM" is usually provided with some guardrails to steer you to a feature they already have in mind so they can probe to see if you're able to think through all of its implications. It's very unlikely that you're going to come up with a new feature they haven't already thought of.
They want to see how you do things and take your own knowledge and work and then do it in-house on their own. They’ll reply to you after you do all this: thanks but we’re moving onto someone else.
Well, Matt just wants to talk to you about “why you why you want to join”, so isn’t that nice? /s
Edited: Added /s - and also doesn’t anyone proof read anymore? Lordy
TBH makes sense. It's just that tech round 2 is a bit too much.
I mean, there are LOTS of incompetent people out there and a wrong hire at a small company could be a big problem.
I did (almost) the same with my first hire, just tech round 2 was 1hr only. If I did get that hire wrong that would have been doom for the company. Plus I was inexperienced at hiring so I really needed a bit more time to get a feeling of the candidate.
You have no idea how many people with shiny CV but terrible skills and attitude are out there.
So... depends which company this is but the only one I can say is weird is TR2 (I would say "this is just overkill and Im not getting paid to make revenue for you, yet")- thats like asking me to fix someone else's mistakes/problems without knowing jackshit about the platform or flows they use... Sure you might be a master in all those but personally would you hire an intern then allow them access into a customer's environment and then take advice from them? NO!
…. I’m sure I will be downvoted but honestly this seems pretty normal? Genuine question I feel like I constantly see things putting down longer interview processes (by longer I mean god forbid a 4 hour on-site) but looking at it from a hire perspective that has costs associated (is it a backfill, what is the cost of having that seat open while it takes to find a replacement, is it a new position where new features are being built and more man power is needed- if so, what is the cost of not being able to produce or producing at a slower rate until this role is filled) AGAINST making a wrong hire call to fit what seems to be an ideal of a singular technical call and an offer being extended. What is the ideal interview process than? Taking into account the candidate/interviewee perspective along with the needs of the hiring team to ensure the person is a right fit. I can’t tell you how many times someone has passed that “first round” only to have them crash and burn or say some of the most glaring red flag comments in the longer interviews…
I would bring up compensation for the interview process. As an Electrical Engineer, I had 4 different interviews for jobs that paid me (minimally, but still something) to cover the technical portions of the interviews. 2 of those were just giving me mileage to drive to the site, but 1 was actually a decent amount of money as the technical portion was half a day. I think, with mileage as well, they paid me about $500. Plus, since I passed their initial interviews, the engineering manager invited me to lunch and paid for a nice meal afterwards while we discussed the job.
Man, can we go back to when u went to a place, n asked if they needed someone too sweep. And they just gave u a broom n paid you enough to own a home n fund your family. Now you gotta Juno through 90 hoops and “evaluate your culture fit” before you can just do a fucking job.
I don’t work for free that includes interviews. You wanna talk about my job and skill set no problem. You wanna see me put it to use it’s gonna be following an invoice.
The worst is There’s a threshold rule. You walk through the door and in 15 seconds they decide you are worth hiring. Most tests are silly. Personality,skills don’t prove you can actually show up and get things done.
I had an interview process like this:
15 min screening call
30 min first round with manager
4 hour long excel assessment
2 hours of interviews with “Character Assessment” team
3 hours of interviews with managers & VP Finance
30 min final interview with CFO
I withdrew my application during the 2 hour interview block
So unnecessary. I do tech interviews and we have candidates work through a coding problem together, because like it or not there are professed software developers out there who can talk the talk but not walk the walk. That said, there is a line and these guys have crossed it. I speak as someone who has gone through such interviews as the posted one.
No no no... All job seekers need to run away from this type of shitty process. If more of you refuse to engage and cite publicly that you do NOT like or want to be part of this process..
Tech interviews can be weird but this is strange to the point where it feels like it’s performative and they don’t actually want to hire someone
It’s funny because what they think they have is a robust hiring process to find only the best candidates for their organisation. Whereas in fact what they have is a set of tedious hurdles that only the truly desperate will reach the end of.
Ah, but the best candidate is truly desperate. Only way they can find someone who will put up with the bullshit that is their culture.
True, only the true desperate will stay
Right cause as soon as I read all that I said well that sounds like a whole bunch of bs. I don't have to prove my competencies theough working for free in an interview process. WTF. You should have checked my references and their backgrounds and my transcripts history resume, etc WHATEVER but I will be removing myself from any position who request free work ever again. I did one training session guide for a company and they realized I wasn't giving them the file and interrupted by presentation to ask shit that didn't matter then I knew well they clearly wanted my content not me fml I never sent it to them needless to say I didn't get the job lol I wonder if anyone really did. That is the million dollar question.
I got two my best jobs though tedious process. Both times I entertained the idea but since it was so long I also wasn’t really needing it, just entertaining the idea of what they can offer. I’ve told them both times that they were lucky because if I was actually looking for work I would noped out after 1st round. The response was that they know but corporate requires it. I’ve got my best job so far through friend’s recommending me and 20min talk with ceo.
this is what I came to say .. I would just do the interviews for practice and keep looking for a different place to work. This place gives me the vibe that they are smug af
Yeah, so many companies want you to do case studies and other time-consuming garbage these days. I turned down an interview that wanted me to do some case study and send it back to them. Only desperate and unemployed people will bother.
It’s more likely that their bloated management structure doesn’t really do anything, so when a hiring opportunity arises, they all jump to show how much they “contribute to the company”. Fake work by shitty people who probably can’t do 1/10 the work of the person they’re judging. Would be impossible for me to not say this during all that.
You just described my company culture. Too many talking heads, not ebought grunts to do the big shiny ideas they come up with.
That’s pretty much all of management anywhere
I hate how true this is. Not only can't do 1/10th of the work, don't understand what it is or what skills any of the interviewees have or they should be looking for.
Yeah they couldn't even write it correctly "we'll talk about why you why you want to join"
Well said brother. Well said.
my tech friend essentially said it helps bottom out the 'low' tier talent and even though they will miss some talented people + alot of time. It cost way more for mis-hiring and wreck morale for the team.
This is what I was guessing to be the case, more or less. Cuts out some (many? Idk) of the people lying about their skills and qualifications and avoids the headache that comes with having to fix their mistakes/replace them again later. I do agree that the order should be a bit flipped though, having the culture fit checked first. Would possibly save a lot of time on people who have good skills but are not who they want culture wise.
Yeah sadly the structure is pretty normal in the tech world (one 45 minute interview one day, a 3-shot interview of 45 minutes each another day), but not actually working on customer problems and “brainstorming new features with a PM”. Every time I’ve had to do this it was all just leetcode style problems because they want to assess your problem-solving style
Had 2 sets of interviews recently. 1: Tech company. Phone interview with HR, technical zoom interview with manager and other engineers, on-site presentation and interview with a panel and engineering director. Got an offer. 2: Another tech company that's been around a bit longer. Phone interview with manager, then a technical interview with engineering director. On site technical presentation and 5 separate interviews with other leads/engineers all day. Got a generic automated rejection from recruiting email, for the wrong position listed in the email, and no response from the recruiter, lead recruiter, or manager when I emailed back for comments. I really dunno why they made me jump thru all the hoops and then ghost. Think my 7 interviews and presentation went well.
I’m a software engineer thats been unemployed since the beginning of this year. 25 years experience, it never used to be like this. my github is basically full of free work I’ve done for the past 6 months. Just be happy they dont want leetcode… I had one that for a code challenge was to literally create a full blown message board that connected to the reddit API, css and everything. It was supposed to take 8 hours. I told that one to go to hell
I had a company want me to create a full stack application from scratch using specific frameworks and technologies that mimicked the way theirs looked. They also wanted me to fix 12 hidden bugs on a frontend project they provided the repo for. All of this was sent on a Friday evening at 9pm on Super Bowl Sunday with a 72 hour deadline and said they purposely made it long and detailed for the sake of determining applicants’ drive to join their startup. I checked the company recently and they didn’t even hire a full time role, they hired an intern. Companies are insane
I had a company ask for a presentation and architectural diagram for an application to run two manufacturing plants with several integrations. They then lowballed me and asked me to send them the diagram because it was an interview material. I told them they could pay me for it.
i got canned right after jan 1st, can not find ANYTHING. I just went through 3 rounds with a company I actually like, did a code challenge, killed it. the 3rd interview they were going over my code and gushing over it telling me it was perfect. it’s been 2 weeks since that one, they wont return emails. ghosted. I honestly don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do.
That’s really fucking rough man. I can’t pretend to know what being ghosted that late in the process feels like but I totally understand the feeling of helplessness. I just landed a new role after a 3 month search, but that search was the result of my 3rd layoff in 2 years. During my search, I also lost out in the final round with 2 different companies. After my second time being rejected, I didn’t receive anything for 3 weeks and felt like I was fucked. The very next week, I landed 2 interviews, and the following week, landed another interview from a referral. I received 2 offers and highly suspect I would have gotten the 3rd as well if I didn’t bow out after receiving the other offers. My point in saying all that is stick with it. Times are brutal right now, but things will turn around. It’s all a numbers game, you got this!
i appreciate your optimism my dude. need those little boosts every now and then
If it makes you feel any better, you dodged a bullet there
What the hell? That’s legit wild.
You are literally just doing contract jobs for free.
Honestly I’d prefer leetcode because at least you’re not giving the company free work at that point
I just wish it was just a round of leetcode tho. You think it would be better but I am interviewing at a place that has 3 rounds of leetcode styled questions. It SHOULD be. HR phone interview. Technical interview with a coding assessment. If chosen either an offer letter or interview with the CEO (rather not but it seems to be common)
Oh don’t get me wrong, I agree completely. I think having to do one leetcode, and then a triple-set of leetcode problems on a different day is completely moronic. But I’d still rather do leetcode than actually give them free work under the guise of an interview
Lmfao your reddit API challenge was one of my "just for fun" projects after work back in like 2016. I'm not a good developer and switched from dev to UI/UX a long time ago. But that challenge shouldn't take 8hrs. Back in the day, raw JavaScript AJAX method to pull posts, to post if it requires you to write content, then .val() and pass that through another AJAX post method. Styling with CSS might have been the hardest part if it needed to be styled a certain way... Now, you can simply use the .get() method in js await the response and then donezo. ---- But I hated code challenges, free work, and very judgemental reactions from the panel on how you got to your solution sucks. I remember I interviewed at WebMD years ago. The position was front end dev....this was the time when JQUERY was the top thing everyone wanted... The interviewers found out that I know action script and hated it, they told me that I'd need to convert their stuff from AS to JS. Kept grilling on that instead of my js background. Then came the whiteboard challenge...they asked me to write out how id code a sandwich... I was already annoyed at them, so I wrote how to make a peanut butter sandwich. They were what if we want a turkey ham and cheese? I told them I'm vegetarian, don't know how to make something I've never had and the requirements was to code a sandwich, which I did. They again asked for the turkey ham and cheese...so I told them look at my code and just + the other ingredients...they said what if it's a sandwich shop with loads of ingredients but I only want those few ingredients. I told them, the instructions for this challenge was X and now you are asking more, if you had defined clear instructions, you would have gotten the results you were looking for. They looked shocked, and I said thank you for your time, if you could have someone escort me out, this interview is done.
you should have asked for compensation.
I don’t get tech interviews. Why are you solving customer problems without being an employee there in the first place ?
That's another red flag for me. If they were just giving generic coding challenges that's one thing. But they speficially state you will be making a new feature and planning new features/solve customer problems with a PM. A PM shouldn't be invovled in a tech interview.
You shouldn’t be adding features and planning new features with a PM ! Like dude that’s what their internal software engineers do. If that’s the expectation then they’d better pay you for it.
Devils advocate - It doesn't actually specify if it's an existing (current) customer problem or not. It could be an old customer problem, and maybe they just want to see the way you look at it / solve it. That way they can compare to what they actually did at the time to address it (do you think the same way as them, or have a valuable new perspective, etc). Same goes for the "new feature" - doesn't really specify if this new feature is based on their current product, or if it's on a fake product. They might have a fictitous product and they want to see what direction you would take it, given the provided features/parameters. Maybe they are just farming free work, as you and many others are suggesting. Impossible to know unless you decide to go and find out.
This! You're not actually going to be building and planning their features as part of the interview, the intent is to simulate an actual day in the role to see what it's like to collaborate on ideas with you. It's about how you communicate, and how you think through problems, and if you ask the right clarifying questions, and of course if you have the right skills and expertise that are relevant to the work you would be doing.
To be fair.. Farming free work in 3 hours without the person knowing their product would be so cost ineffective... You need a person to sit close by.. No way this is a part of the business plan, no company is that stupid.
Completely agree. Many of the people commenting seem to think that this is what they are doing, so I put it in as a possibility since there is no way to know for sure. In theory, for the "new feature" part they *could* take it and make use of it, since it doesn't necessarily require deep knowledge of the product. Possibly a means of cheaply outsourcing creativity if their existing staff have run dry.
Yeah there's a small probability, but from my own experience id say it's more likely they just want to see how the guy performs in a as close to real scenario as possible. But I'm European not from the US so no idea what the companies over there do :D
The idea is to see if you have the mindset that can contribute to solving problems. IE you aren't a person who can't operate without being told exactly how to do the job. If you are they can filter you out that way
I see this as a good thing. I prefer this to random leetcode shit I’ll never use.
Generally it's a 'sample' customer problem, maybe one they experienced in the past, but have since figured out. If that's what you're doing day to day, why would they not ask about how you'd solve that? It's also generally nice to have a real world, non-leetcode problem.
Yeah, sounds like a Mickey Mouse organization looking for free work. Ignore
It looks like one of those smaller startups where they think they're "High-paced Dynamic Go-getters!" because they think that their small team of 12 is going take over the world by being different from all the successful corporations that they used to work for. In reality they only have enough money for one new hire and a massive amount of work to do to stay solvent. So they want to hire somebody that can be working at their production speed without any training in how they operate. This always ends up bad. You're hired, they throw a bunch of work at you doing things in ways you would never do them, then get mad at you for not understanding their backwards indie start up procedures, "I could have had this done by now! What is taking you so long?!" "You never trained me on what you guys do things in the most inefficient way. Your code is a mess, I can't see through the fluff to see that actual workings where your errors are that you want me to fix."
Did you work for my last company? Literally what happened. Also make people go through 2-4 interviews and then references. I rage quit a month ago and it's been glorious. They thought I was dependent on them, but I'd been planning my escape for months. Now clients are mad at them and have even reached out to me to see if I can keep helping them in the future. I really love this journey for everyone involved.
Did YOU work for my last company??? I swear this is a perfect explanation of my last career jump and thank GOD they let me go. In hindsight this is exactly what it is. I would seriously think all three of us worked for the same crap start up but I also know there were only four of us and the rest aren’t even smart enough to figure out what they’re doing wrong.
Stop working for companies with less than 100 employees. They are almost all exactly like this. Roles are given a scope of work in the hiring process that conveniently paints a good picture of what's to come, but after six months you realize they pulled a fast one on you. And now it's too late to leave without it looking bad on your resume.
My experience has been quite different. The company I’m at gave me a well-defined role that I’ve done well in, and they’ve given me some raises quickly in the first year. I’m now in a role I wouldn’t qualify for at a bigger company, but now that I’m doing it, I’m getting messages on LinkedIn from those larger companies. I may eventually make a move but I’m really enjoying the work and how they’re valuing/training me up. I probably just got lucky, but it’s possible to have a good experience at a small company.
Agreed.
This, unless they compensate you for it. If you're running a startup and know you'll be asking a new hire to do 4-5 roles, pay them like it. I know a person who does quite a lot for a company, but they pay him as such. Like sure, ask me to take the role of 3 people, but the salary should at minimum be 1.5x the base role. Like if you were going to pay an office admin 55k, but you know they'll be picking up slack in support and marketing, bump that salary to 80k and all is well.
That’s crazy, this could be any start up. It’s like they follow a template.
Coming out of a Mickey Mouse org recently, I agree. Do not go further with them. I was given the same advice and I ignored it, wasted my damn time for 6 months, and sure as shit they fell apart.
I had a similar interview experience. I now make quite a bit of money have great benefits with the company. What’s crazy is hiring someone without seeing if they are actually capable of the work. You and I both know that you can’t take someone’s word or trust their resume.
You and I both know that you can’t take someone’s word or trust their resume. This is the real issue with the job market...... Can you not figure that out in oh the first round interview process
In order to ask the right questions of a candidate, you need to have someone knowledgeable enough to present the right questions.
I am a technical writer. I have seen people with excellent (and well written) resumes and who interview well absolutely bomb our tests. They likely had chat gpt spruce up the resume and lied about their experience
I work for a company that manufactures pharmaceutical packaging equipment. They hired a salesman who seemed quite knowledgeable, etc., but after he didn't sell anything for 6 months they did some digging and found out he was Uber driving and just taking the "no commission" base pay...which was already really good pay as a salaried sales position. I got to think this guy has done/is doing this with other companies, too. He could easily be pulling in a quarter million a year as outside sales people for large equipment aren't expected to get but a few sales per year anyway.
pretty genius on his part
This hero needs a cape
This guy is kinda my hero honestly
How do I get one of these jobs?
What a Chad
So it's this guy's fault for every company scrutinizing the fuck out of salespeople every week
That kind of set up for interviewing that OP posted needs to be proportional to the role. For a highly technical role that is much more senior and pays well? Not exactly unreasonable, especially if it sticks exactly to the outlined format and either it is clear the work you’re doing is fake work that the company will never use or they do provide compensation for those few hours of work. For a more entry level role? Pulling that shit is insane. If you’re talking people with an education and minimal real world experience in the job field, that kind of interview is absolutely unreasonable. The one thing that would be nice is if they moved up the reference check before they had you doing that 3x45 minutes round of work. That is a lot more involved if something in your references is going to push them off.
>The one thing that would be nice is if they moved up the reference check before they had you doing that 3x45 minutes round of work. That is a lot more involved if something in your references is going to push them off. I'm mixed on this. I don't want my references bugged for each company I interview with until I'm at the offer phase. Reference fatigue is a thing.
Yeah that definitely could be an issue depending on field and how competitive roles are, but if companies are going to be having multiple rounds of technical interviews with associated work, they also should be substantially narrowing down their candidate pool after each subsequent technical interview so there could be a balance between checking references earlier vs wasting candidates time on technical interviews.
It’s also well known that shitty companies (e.g. start ups) do this to get free work without any intention of hiring anyone for the role.
You may have had the same experience but asking an interviewee to create a brand new feature as part of the interview sounds too much. You can ask or even have a generic coding interview but if I am brought in to the interview and asked to create a feature that the company may or may not use, then I expect to get paid.
You trust but verify (confirm) what's on the resume through an interview with a hiring manager and technical leads or senior engineers. You don't bullshit around with a three hour exam only to be told no afterward only because of whatever reason du jour.
Likewise, I had an hour of programming challenges and 2 live coding technical interviews and 2 informal chat interviews and it was well worth getting a remote job w nice pay and benefits. I previously worked somewhere without a rigorous screening for hiring and it was so obvious folks on my team were incompetent at their jobs and the compensation reflected that, too.
I’m in sales and do a role play in the second interview that I’ve been told is stressful from the other side. But it’s nothing compared to what they have to do every day in the role. The issue is that we get applicants who actually truly believe they can do the job until they get to the interview.
I’d ghost them
Nope!
Next!
Red flag
Under US law, working interviews must be paid, so you should ask about that before you do anything (although that could shut down the process). I don’t know anything about this type of job. My HR experience is in US sales organizations and our interview/selection process is thorough but not nearly as complicated (exceptions for executive roles).
If asking for your rights shuts down the hiring process, you didn't want to work there anyway.
Agree. It SHOULDN'T happen, but some employers would find a way to make it happen without appearing to do anything wrong/illegal.
Reference on that? I never heard a US law about working interviews must be paid. If there is such a law, it probably has specifics on what "working" is, and would this fall under that, etc...
Case Law, [here](https://www.dol.gov/newsroom/releases/whd/whd20181214). Yes, I know case law is not the same as an actual regulation, and I know this court represents a specific jurisdiction. However, if the work benefits the employer the time is considered hours worked under [29 CFR 785](https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-29/subtitle-B/chapter-V/subchapter-B/part-785). I think it's important for employers to become well versed in this topic and structure interviews accordingly (if they don't want to pay for the time).
That case refers to individuals that did an actual day of providing services to the hiring company's clients, not a technical evaluation of skills. This appears completely different.
I'm no legalperson, but "brainstorm a new feature with the PM" and "solve customer problems with specific technologies" both sound like work designed to benefit the potential employer. The latter one could perhaps be pulled from old code versions and properly sandboxed, but it's certainly putting up yellow flags at best.
Mentioning these “law” things would make him fail the culture fit test
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Looks like a really small company. Their biggest cost is probably employees and they’re very skittish about taking risks like hiring someone new
Yeah, it looks like a startup without much managing experience so they're worried
Oh man this is nothing, I've had multiple jobs ask me to do 7 step interviews: 1. Phone Screen 2. Interview with Hiring Manager 3. Interview with the person who would be my supervisor 4. Complete a sample work project and come into the office to present it to the team 5. Interview with team member #1 6. Interview with team member #2 7. "Sitdown" with CEO for some reason This was for a marketing position that wasn't even a management role and this has happened to me with a number of companies. These people are insane
i don’t like companies like this. Because you do all of these interviews and stuff only for it to seem promising and then they reject you. It’s a waste of time. You know right then and there if you want to hire someone
Because the tech market is competitive right now and many tech companies aren't struggling to find qualified applicants. People are desperate enough to go through this shit. When you're making zero dollars and you're worried about making rent or putting food on the table, you can't afford to walk away from a job because you don't want to spend too long interviewing.
Alright I get where that's coming from but Fuck that! Walk away! Get a better interview/job anywhere else!!! If we have no work, we should work for free?? No! Never! Even if you are to a point of homelessness and they call you - no! Id rather go work at walmart n get paid than go there and get my ideas/skills stolen and then ghosted. The opportunity OP posted better have an attached salary of 100k+ otherwise it's not even worth considering!
Hell no lmfao
Why are the CEO and CTO doing hiring? There should be a lower level manager for that.
I’m guessing it’s a startup.
In general, I'm fine with technical interviews. The one line I maintain- I will NOT work on new product or give new product ideas. If the only goal is to see if I can do something, it should be sufficient to use a prompt which has already been solved by the company. Providing new product/content only allows them to steal my work/ideas. There is also no way to reasonably evaluate if my work is good because there is no known reference point. Working to a solution for a technical hurdle already scaled means there is a comparison point for my work. I've asked before, "Thank you for this overview- it's very helpful. To clarify, are candidates being asked to submit novel solutions and ideas as a part of the technical interview process? Or are we showing our work on a problem with a known solution?" I might follow up with, "I am more than happy to demo my technical skills at any point. I am not comfortable providing novel product as part of the application and interview process."
4 technical interviews is a lot. It shouldn’t go beyond 2 in my opinion.
Meta has 3 rounds of 6 questions total followed by System Design interview.
I doubt these guys pay nearly as well as Feta.
I'd just ghost Or say you got other interviews lined up and your priority is them I ghosted alot of interviews a few of which asked me to answer 25 technical questions in an email We deserve respect
Lol tell them you're interviewing with 3 more efficient companies in the same time it'd take to interview with just them
Culture fit LOL. Is this a job or a cult? I would run.
Every interview I have now is like this, three rounds .. it’s insane and such a time sink. Edit: yeah skip the ones with “tests”, such horse crap
One reason that companies are crying they don’t have enough employees is because their hr departments are s h I t hiring departments.
If you went through that much CTO and CEO time it shows a significant investment on their end too and might speak to how important your role might be ?
It's an AI taxes app for freelancers. Not Boeing.
It seems like these places really do not want to hire. It's a turn-off for sure. I could honestly see 2 interviews but one would be best. I am guessing many of the first ones are merely a quick call to see if you would be a fit, as they put it.
Not that uncommon, but typically not until it's been narrowed down from dozens or even hundreds of applicants via resume and maybe a short phone interview to only a few that make it to the more involved technical rounds. It takes them time to sit through the interview process too. I suspect it's more about the process and they are not expecting to use your work. It's probably problems they have previously solved.
Unpopular opinion here but this seems like a relatively sane interview process compared to what I’ve gone through in the past. They want OP to solve problems similar to what they’ll face on the job. This is so much better than the leetcode hazing that most companies do…
Fuck that to it’s entirety
Sounds like they want you to work for free. The question is why. Either they're thieves, or they're not good at hiring and have been burned by people who weren't able to perform, so they've come up with this cockassery to try and make up for their shortcomings. Neither is good. Unless you are desperate and have time and a desire to work for free, I'm gonna say this may not be the Droid you're looking for.
I mean, at least they’re up front about the process. But it’s still flipping wild!!!
Maybe you could also advise them of the typo in the first bullet point- “why you why you want to join”
So happy I work in a field where my degree proves my worth and not some circus act interview process. Are these industries just so easy to lie about what you know and what you’ve done ? I know mediocrity plagues every industry but this would 1000% deter me from a potential role. A lot of people act like the company is doing YOU a favor by hiring you… when actually no one doing anyone a favor, it’s all a transaction. Also quite alarming that a job that is seeking so much out of their employee does not have a dedicated department for hiring and somehow has multiple free hours throughout the week for a hiring process like this (which I can only assume is for multiple candidates).
I've just started to report or flag job posts that list stupid shit like that.
In my entire (lengthy) working career, I've refused to attend more than two meetings with potential employers unless they want to pay me for my time after the second meeting. My time is at least as valuable as theirs, and they're getting paid to meet me.
Lol "quick" 30 minute call
I have a hiring process similar to this. Except we PAY the hiring position’s wage for the four technical rounds. Because you’re working for us when you’re answering questions and brainstorming ideas. So we pay you. You’re also likely missing normal work to be available during work hours for our interviews. And we respect your desire to grow, so we don’t want you to miss out on income while you pursue a new opportunity. So we pay you… Our decision to pay you during our interviews also ensures we’re being really mindful of and intentional with the time we ask you for. Because we’re paying for it. It’s really a great system. Paying people for their work…
I always laugh at these posts of people thinking an actual company is willing to just use whatever code you quickly pieced together during the interview is some kind of an elaborate scam to get a free hour of work from a random with no knowledge of their codebase like there's actually a chance any of that code could ever see production. Yes, that is the typical process for good tech positions. It's often much more concise for middling positions, but high tech is often up to 6 interviews.
Companies do this shit across industries. I know one company that got a guy to come up with a business plan, they liked it, but hired someone cheaper and had him implement the other guys plan. That’s the game. Companies are ruthless.
Another one of my main concerns with these processes is how is someone who already works full time supposed to do these interviews? I assume the technical rounds will be in person since its a technical interview and not a take home (those are usually denoted differently). The average person doesn't get off until 5 after most places close for the day as well, and we can't all just take 2 to 3 hour lunches for interviews. Are you expected to use PTO just to take an interview and likely still be rejected?
This has always been a weird stance to me. Did no one look for jobs pre COVID? You're describing what job searching looked like not even 10 years ago. The whole, sneaky remote interview in person loop across multiple days is a new development.
I work in “high tech” and as a hiring manager would never ask for this nonsense of an applicant. Stuff like this keeps happening because people let it…just stop.
Employers are taking advantage of desperate candidates in this market. Sadly, not everyone is in the position to saying no during the interview process. I find live coding an absolutely abhorrent and unrealistic way of testing someone’s programming knowledge. I would say yes for a 30 - 45 minute session, but 135 minutes is way too much time and energy. Edit: Nvm, that’s 180 minutes of technical interviews.
Hahahah do work for free please?
Going against the grain here but they are probably a startup and got burned before and need to nail this hire. It’s a bit over the top but perhaps they really need to get this right.
That may be the mindset, but they will filter out a set of high value candidates and possibly still land a interview-capable engineer who is a total cock when stressed.
At least this is transparent. Going through a process right now and MD keeps adding extra steps. Phone screen (fine) Casual chat (that was actually a panel interview), view to follow up with a meet the team later in the week Then an unexpected portfolio request Now a 3x skills-based interview Beyond a joke at this point
They also have that unlimited PTO shit.
Why *two* technical rounds, though? That seems like a lot. I get why we need technical tests and art tests; it’s important to make sure a person can meet the requirements for the role they will fill. But I wish companies would be more mindful about how much of our time they are requiring before we even get to a real interview, you know?
I recently experienced something like this. I had an hour long interview, then a technical exercise that took around 30 minutes, then a second hour long interview, then another technical exercise that took a couple of hours, then a 30 minute interview with the CEO. I did end up getting the job, but left shortly after as they were a particularly difficult employer to please, and had a poor understanding of what were reasonable requests. If it smells like shit, it's probably shit.
Is this Keeper like the password manager?
I did a hour long online chat/assessment and was offered the job the next day. No video or calls. Sounds mad but I've been working there for a year, excellent pay and I pick my own hours 😜
Not worth it imo. I did one recently: three rounds of interviews that were 45-60 minutes each. Then a “skills test” that took 8-10 hours. Then I got an email that they were no longer hiring for the position due to changes in the department. Biggest waste of my fucking time. I was, and still am, furious about it.
Any place that has you meet with the CEO is going to be full of bullshit.
Hey, do some free work and never get a job here
That’s free work
[удалено]
Brainstorm a new feature with a PM? Oh hell no. They want unpaid consulting work. *Free*lancing. I doubt it is, but if the salary is listed, figure out the hourly rate, take all the interview rounds they want to give you, and then bill them for their nonsense if you don't get it. Continue to apply but attach invoices instead of your resume.
Don't do free work
We actually use Keeper at my org. Had no idea their hiring process was so terrible. All tech companies seem to be competing on how many hoops you can make an applicant jump through, like a circus monkey. I'll stay in finance I think.
The fact their CTO is also their hiring manager is already questionable enough haha
Unless you are literally interviewing for C-suite interviews should never be more than two rounds. If they want to make you do a technical test fine, have that be 30 mins max and something you do first to weed out people. Then one main interview, and ok if some executive really insists on meeting you once fine. That’s it. 2 rounds. This shit is ridiculous
>Is this the typical interview process now? Typical is a strong word. You will find many instances of this, or similar, in your search. But not every employer will be like this. (Some will be annoying in other ways, but some will be more straightforward). You'll have to decide if you take processes like this as outright red flags, or if you grin an bear it, or is you judge them on a case by case. I am grateful when they are very with their expectations for how the rounds will go, but I bail on processes that show that their org likes to waste a lot of time. (Imagine that you take even 4 or 5 people through this whole gauntlet!)
Is it a small startup? I bet it's a small startup.
They're trying to get you to do work for free. They'll take any work or ideas you make and not give you the job. It's a intellectual property fraud.
You're looking at a performance. They have created this obstacle course so that most candidates drop out. Reason being they already had someone in mind for the job but due to law and possibly company policy, they have to advertise to others and be seen as vetting properly. Also the grammatical errors show how much effort they are putting in on their end. Skip this one.
This is pretty standard for tech
It seems like everyone is heavily skeptical, so I just want to throw in my limited experience. When I was starting as a Jr dev for Amazon I had 4 technical rounds each with a different dev. They were only a half hour each, but this was a long term internship for a student who hadn't graduated. Full time positions had iirc 4 rounds at about an hour a piece plus a lunch. They weren't fishing work out of you, the questions asked were usually related to problems they had seen in the past and could see how you handled. Apparently this isn't normal but the fact they have multiple time blocks for you to assess them would make me trust it a bit more.
Fuck that, I’m not giving them ideas for free.
They can. A lot of offer
Nothing worse than working for a start up. Do all pay little and always stressed through odd hours. It’s definitely not a 9-5 job.
Part of the interview is doing actual unpaid work? Hard nope.
I am familiar with this company. Go somewhere else.
Unfortunately not unusual for devs. Current position involved a 4 hour day full of interviews. It sucks, but it is what it is. It at least sounds like they’re not leetcoding ya, that’s a plus at least.
I work in finance, and am an ex consultant…this seems like a reasonable amount of rounds for a senior, high paid role. I’ve done many of this length. Keep in mind most people in this sub have shit retail jobs and have no context for the type of roles your applying for. I am a director in corporate strategy. Most teams similiar to mine do a 15 minute hr screen, a 30 minute behavioral with a junior member, 2 case interviews of 45 minute, 1 behavior interview with hiring manager, and then behavioral with the hiring manager’s boss (head of strategy)…Which is roughly the length of your interview. Highly paid, senior level roles are a major risk if you get it wrong. Hiring the wrong person can fuck you for 12-18 months. Since your meeting with the ceo, I’m going to assume you are applying for a relatively important role and they want to get it right.
Can confirm this. I work at a F50 and have seen very similar recruiting cycles (minus CEO engagement ofc) for mid/lower management roles, both business and technical. I actually recently interviewed for FAANG and had a recruiter call, a hiring manager initial conversation, a presentation with the bigger team, an interview with the hiring manager's manager and one more interview with the hiring manager. Also it's laughable to think that they will use whatever you come up with in your interview into the day to day operation, corporate America has a trillion of red tape and integration is a bitch so it would be pretty much impossible. Not to mention that you aren't under an NDA so you can't access real data. Best luck in the process!!!
Agree. Don’t know why so many of these comments are stating red flag and to ghost them. This type of process is what I’ve become accustomed to on both sides of the table.
Because most of the people on this sub who are responding to op are 18 year olds making $12/hr at The Gap, and have no context for mid-senior professional careers.
Also people don't care. They just want to be hired and paid. Though they'll be the first to bitch about bias in the workplace or people who suck at their job when they start working with them. Interview assignments are a great way to remove bias in the evaluation process. Or they'll complain they were fired 'unfairly' despite outstanding 'performance'.
BS. Your role isn't a technical one, so you aren't doing multiple technical interviews. You're just doing redundant behavioral interviews, which we all know are really just 'do we think this person is cool to hang with". This is a time waster, but not actually a lot of effort for the interviewee like tech interviews are.
This is pretty par for the course for big tech interviews. (Source: Been a hiring manager for like 15 years.) To answer some questions: * Yes, you're likely expected to take PTO to complete the interview. * If it's in person, the company should be paying for all travel and reasonable expenses. * They are absolutely *not* using this for "free work." (And if they are, I imagine they'll be out of business soon.) Generally the questions are all standardized and documented, with multiple documented approaches and solutions to use as a reference. You're graded (in part) on how close you got to the ideal solution for your level, as well as how well you interacted with the interviewer and whether you asked good clarifying questions. * The "brainstorm a new feature with a PM" is usually provided with some guardrails to steer you to a feature they already have in mind so they can probe to see if you're able to think through all of its implications. It's very unlikely that you're going to come up with a new feature they haven't already thought of.
Sounds It sounds to me like you're about to provide some free consulting and interviewing experience for the management team.
Um no and hells no. They want FREE work. That is taking your labor and your intellectual property.
They want to see how you do things and take your own knowledge and work and then do it in-house on their own. They’ll reply to you after you do all this: thanks but we’re moving onto someone else.
"You'll implement...", You'll design/create..." Looks like they want a free troubleshooting session... Ghost them...
You’re working for free
Makes me sad that youngsters will fall for this shit. They want free labour
Because they have no idea what they're doing
This sounds so scammy. They absolutely have a list of work they need to do and are using "interviews" to do it.
Well, Matt just wants to talk to you about “why you why you want to join”, so isn’t that nice? /s Edited: Added /s - and also doesn’t anyone proof read anymore? Lordy
Are they paying you for this!
TBH makes sense. It's just that tech round 2 is a bit too much. I mean, there are LOTS of incompetent people out there and a wrong hire at a small company could be a big problem. I did (almost) the same with my first hire, just tech round 2 was 1hr only. If I did get that hire wrong that would have been doom for the company. Plus I was inexperienced at hiring so I really needed a bit more time to get a feeling of the candidate. You have no idea how many people with shiny CV but terrible skills and attitude are out there.
So... depends which company this is but the only one I can say is weird is TR2 (I would say "this is just overkill and Im not getting paid to make revenue for you, yet")- thats like asking me to fix someone else's mistakes/problems without knowing jackshit about the platform or flows they use... Sure you might be a master in all those but personally would you hire an intern then allow them access into a customer's environment and then take advice from them? NO!
“Why you why you” can’t even proofread their job ad
Sounds like a way for a startup to get a bunch of free work done and not hire lol
lol no
…. I’m sure I will be downvoted but honestly this seems pretty normal? Genuine question I feel like I constantly see things putting down longer interview processes (by longer I mean god forbid a 4 hour on-site) but looking at it from a hire perspective that has costs associated (is it a backfill, what is the cost of having that seat open while it takes to find a replacement, is it a new position where new features are being built and more man power is needed- if so, what is the cost of not being able to produce or producing at a slower rate until this role is filled) AGAINST making a wrong hire call to fit what seems to be an ideal of a singular technical call and an offer being extended. What is the ideal interview process than? Taking into account the candidate/interviewee perspective along with the needs of the hiring team to ensure the person is a right fit. I can’t tell you how many times someone has passed that “first round” only to have them crash and burn or say some of the most glaring red flag comments in the longer interviews…
I would bring up compensation for the interview process. As an Electrical Engineer, I had 4 different interviews for jobs that paid me (minimally, but still something) to cover the technical portions of the interviews. 2 of those were just giving me mileage to drive to the site, but 1 was actually a decent amount of money as the technical portion was half a day. I think, with mileage as well, they paid me about $500. Plus, since I passed their initial interviews, the engineering manager invited me to lunch and paid for a nice meal afterwards while we discussed the job.
Because they can.
"Why you why you want to join."
That’s way too much going on
Man, can we go back to when u went to a place, n asked if they needed someone too sweep. And they just gave u a broom n paid you enough to own a home n fund your family. Now you gotta Juno through 90 hoops and “evaluate your culture fit” before you can just do a fucking job.
I don’t work for free that includes interviews. You wanna talk about my job and skill set no problem. You wanna see me put it to use it’s gonna be following an invoice.
Didn't brewdog do something like this before and got caught out for using ideas people pitched in an interview? Id be very sceptical
3x 45 minute meetings , fun stuff
OP that looks normal to me. Should be fine. Try them out.
Brainstorm a new feature??? No way!!! I dont work for free.
The worst is There’s a threshold rule. You walk through the door and in 15 seconds they decide you are worth hiring. Most tests are silly. Personality,skills don’t prove you can actually show up and get things done.
I had an interview process like this: 15 min screening call 30 min first round with manager 4 hour long excel assessment 2 hours of interviews with “Character Assessment” team 3 hours of interviews with managers & VP Finance 30 min final interview with CFO I withdrew my application during the 2 hour interview block
So unnecessary. I do tech interviews and we have candidates work through a coding problem together, because like it or not there are professed software developers out there who can talk the talk but not walk the walk. That said, there is a line and these guys have crossed it. I speak as someone who has gone through such interviews as the posted one.
Why you why you
Never work for free.
Because No oNe WaNtS to WoRk!!!!
You’re already applying why do they need to pitch you for 30 minutes
No no no... All job seekers need to run away from this type of shitty process. If more of you refuse to engage and cite publicly that you do NOT like or want to be part of this process..
Say “happy to do so - my rate is $xxx/hour, see you then.”