Candidature

J'ai postulé via une recommandation d'un employé. Le processus a pris 2 semaines. J'ai passé un entretien à Capital One (Vienna, VA (États-Unis)) en août 2019.

Entretien

Phone Screen (2 Job fit, 2 Behavioral, 1 Case).

Phone Screen was easy, apart from architectural questions, the interviewer asked me some outdated questions in Java for this position (such as Comparator and Comparable and some basics on Strings). I answered them anyways. I was asked to explain "AWS layers", I asked for clarification that if its about "Lambda layers" or something else. I had to make the interviewer realize to ask me about AWS Services :). Some questions around CICD, Security.

JobFit went really well, I explained them architecture and for a given problem I could present them AWS and open source solutions architecture using multiple programming languages with solid reasoning. The interviewers were smart and I could see they were impressed with my answers and architecture white-boarding.

Behavioral went well too, as I prepared and practiced 8-10 examples upfront. Interviewers were nice and friendly too. In my second behavioral round I was asked similar questions, I pointed this to the interviewer who gracefully apologized and thanked me. He then asked different set of questions.

Technical Case study was interesting but easy. I needed couple of indirect hints to speed up my solution. This doesn't need much preparation, just get a basic understanding of it. Recruiter will give you some info. I unnecessarily over prepared for it. Who knows, it might help me sometime in future. This is the only round where I learned something new that day :).

Then they had something called as Ambassador meeting for 30 minutes in between the interviews (mine was Video), where the ambassador from senior leadership told me that this is the time I get to ask questions, but then he started talking about his journey in the company for first 10 minutes and then started talking about Capital One. I pointed out that I worked in Capital One, and then he went thru my resume. From his facial expression I could sense that he was probably not happy that I am applying for a Senior Manager position with 15 months of leaving the company (2 level up from the position I left). When I was questioning him on few things, I was intercepted on multiple occasions, didn't expect that from someone at that position.

There was also a lunch meeting with another person whom I found weak in terms of both communication skills and tech knowledge, as compared to other folks who did my Job Fit.

Overall, they were not comfortable in bringing me in for Senior Manager, but wanted me as a Manager, which I couldn't because I am on H1 Visa. I would have however declined Manager offer regardless of the hike.

I must say the process was well organized, and my recruiter did a great job in preparing me for the interview, but there is no point in calling me for entire day and declining even after finding me strong for the position, which negates all the positives from the interview. Clearly, if not everyone at least the hiring manager got biased against me after learning I worked in C1 and my interview performance was neglected. I get it, but this should have been done upfront, and they should have rejected me, not wasting my entire day and everyone else's time.

Notes:
1. I applied for other positions too in C1, where I spoke with senior leadership, who mentioned they have so many positions and would love to bring me in. Later recruiter calls me to tell they had just one position which they closed.
2. For another position, I found one of the recruiters really arrogant. One need to be really assertive with these kind of guys.
3. An (ex-employee) warned me that he left the company because he found it a slave culture in many teams.