I applied online, and completed a HackerRank challenge, after which they invited me in for an interview. When I came in for interview, the office was winding down for Christmas, and the itinerary of the day was a bit disorganised.
I managed to get 3 technical interviews and 2 interviews with more senior staff. The technical interviews had some really fun questions and I did quite well (as they mentioned in their feedback). I also got to ask them what their department did, and had a good idea of the responsibilities of 3 of the 5 major divisions of the company. 2 of these interviews were 2-on-1, and one was 1-on-1.
The interviews with senior staff were somewhat fun as well, as I had the opportunity to talk at great length and in great detail about some interesting side projects I had completed (this makes part of their feedback very confusing). Both of these interviews were 1-on-1.
In terms of soft skills, I was articulate, well presented and built good rapport with my interviewers - with a cheer that was no less than what you could expect from someone stressed because of being at an interview.
I didn't receive the offer (I also applied last year and got a rejection with pretty much the same feedback), and received some frankly baffling feedback.
It (and the feedback email they sent last year) mentioned that I was good with the technical questions (I felt like I got through those interviews pretty easily), able to find optimal solutions and provide fast and accurate complexity analysis.
It (and the feedback email they sent last year) mentioned a lack of interest in Computer Science as the cause for rejection. In light of my experience of my interviews with senior staff, this was very confusing.
There are in my mind only 3 reasons this may be:
- They had given up on me before I arrived and the interviewers were just throwing easy questions at me to get through the interview, with no intention of assessing me for the actual position
- They got some of my feedback confused with other candidates (it was evident how disorganised the office was due to it being the day before the office closed for Christmas)
- The company doesn't value technical ability highly enough
It was unfortunate, as it looked like a decent place to work. I'm disappointed in myself that it took me 2 attempts to realise the nature of the company. As the saying goes: fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.