This was the first company that didn't have any recruiter call to screen me. My first call was with the hiring manager, which was great and I was excited to come onsite. But the onsite interview was a big disappointment! The first interviewer was unprepared, he had no idea what to ask me and was literally writing his thoughts/questions as I was sitting across the table. It seemed like he was doing everything at Disqus yet nothing. The second interviewer was pleasant but given the nature of work done in that role, I was surprised when I didn't get an appropriate answer to my questions (they ought to have known the answer!). The only saving grace was the third interviewer, who was asking smart questions to understand how it would be like to work with me, situational questions etc. After all this is when I got to meet the recruiter (with one of the onsite interviews still to happen). That's where we spoke about salary expectations, culture etc. I quoted my expected range which is what the market is valuing me at. But it seemed like this was beyond what they could offer. So the next thing I know is that I am being asked to leave and that the last interviewer is suddenly not available!! I knew that there was a difference between my expectations and what they could offer but this unprofessionalism was not expected. While walking out, I could see the last interviewer was sitting at his desk (so much for being busy/not available). It was a bad experience! They could have asked me expectations at the very start (had there been a recruiter screening like all other companies do). I wasted half a day for this and the time lost to study for the interviews.

A struggle with interviewing is that recruiters are not good with following up when promised. I didn't have that experience with Disqus, they were great about proactively keeping me in the loop.