I had a phone screen with an engineer on the team I was interviewing for. We talked a bit about my background, he liked what he heard, so we went on to a code test. It was a pretty generic "write a program that parses this text and does this with it" kind of questions that I was given two hours to complete. No problem, easy to code up and getting running perfectly. Got it running, polished it up, commented it well, sent it in, and heard nothing for the longest time, with the HR individual I was speaking with saying it was because she hadn't been able to get any feedback from the VPs.
When I finally got a response, I was told that I had a "strong application" but they filled the spot I applied for with a new hire at one of their offices and their "hiring needs have changed." I replied and asked if there were any other positions I might be a fit for, or any similar positions opening up in the near future, and got no response.
So in the end, it all felt incredibly unprofessional, like instead of saying, "We don't think you're a fit here," as a professional organization should, saying "We liked you, but oops, our bad, we gave someone else your job" and essentially blowing me off.
I was impressed by the engineer I interviewed with, and the company sounds like it has some really interesting work, but for it to be handled so unprofessionally in the end was extremely disappointing. All in all I was in contact with them for about 7 weeks.
