I interviewed at Solve Intelligence. The process started well. I had an initial chat with one of the founders who was friendly, followed by a take-home assignment and a technical interview, both of which were interesting. However, very early in the process (even before scheduling the technical interview) I was asked to provide references and full academic transcripts, which felt unusual given this was an experienced industry engineering position. My references were contacted before I had my final interview, and they were asked to schedule a call with the founder, which they did. I was not informed that interviews with references would be part of the process and I only found out about this through my reference. In most tech hiring processes, references are typically checked after a hiring decision or conditional offer, as verification step. Ultimately I was not offered the position after the final interview, which left me feeling like I had unnecessarily wasted my references' time. Contacting references this early in the process is poor hiring etiquette. It gives candidates the impression they are close to an offer, involves their references unnecessarily, and makes a rejection more public than it needs to be. References should not be used as part of the screening process.