First stage of the process was an initial call with HR. Interviewer was really easy going, fun to talk to, and pleasant. Asked about my background and even some questions the devs had her ask me. One was if I’ve worked with Promises. Explained that I have and also told her I’ve worked with it’s “new adaptation” called async/await. Second, she asked if I had experience with IndexedDB. The name didn’t sound familiar so I said “No”. Afterwards I looked it up and it’s just browser local storage, which I have used before although it was called “local forage” and I just hadn’t heard of the other term. Went on to a “technical” phone call with 2 devs where we just talked about the projects I’ve worked on at my current job. Spoke a bit more about the benefits of some aspects of our projects ecosystem (GraphQL, TypeScript, Redux, React). This was followed up with a case study asking for me to create a website that allows users to login, brings you to another screen, pulls random images from any API, allows user to click on them, send them to their “Favorites”, cache the pulled images (both pulled images and favorited images), allow for offline usage, should have a consistent look and feel, and host the website. I was asked to use JavaScript. Completed the case study in two days with all points checked plus login validation which was not asked of me. I gave them instructions on how to view it through the URL or pull it down locally. I also told them I found some help from a Github post about ServiceWorkers and caching for offline use since I had not worked with them beforehand. Heard nothing back after turning it in and they wanted to have the final in-person interview. The final interview was interesting. Met and interviewed with 3 devs, one of which I graduated with. We spoke for about an hour. Went over a portion of my case study (my ServiceWorker file) and again mentioned that I had found some help on Github which they didn’t seem to mind. We really more or less just had a conversation for the duration. For about the first 30 minutes, the interviewer I had graduated with was in the interview on his laptop doing work which was very off putting and unprofessional. Asked about their culture, responsibilities, tech, purpose, etc. and then we went to happy hour after. A week later I received a response, after I had asked when I might hear back, and HR replied asking if I had time for a video interview with some other teams. This clearly meant I did not receive the job but I had to awkwardly ask since it was not explicitly stated. Eventually she said they were looking for someone more Senior level, which is reasonable. She then said: ...“We passed along your case study to another engineer who found the GitHub repository you based the case study on. Unfortunately, because the code was so similar, we don’t feel we have a solid understanding of your JavaScript knowledge”... So from this, it clearly seems like they believed I had entirely copied a project I found off of Github even after being extremely vocal that I did find help from a file, one that still didn’t completely fulfill the requirements I had. This couldn’t have been further from the truth as I did spend quite some time on the case study. I replied to make it known that I of course did not simply copy a project. She then replied asking if I could do another case study. Not only that, but this new case study was in C#, a language that I had only used very briefly for a semester in college, which I stated during the technical phone screening. If my JavaScript project didn’t showcase my skills, how would a project in a language I don’t use professionally? I responded and said that I’m not interested in a position using C# and asked if she had any more related to my background. I received no reply and that was the end of our conversations. Also, it’s now nearly 4 months after this all transpired and I’ve received another offer so this isn’t an emotion filled post. All in all, HR was quite pleasant for the most part but the entire final interview and conversations afterwards were a HUGE red flag.