On Thursday 1/25 I had a panel interview, we'll call that company AXZ. It was 4 1/2 hours, I met with 8 people (2 per hour, and the final half hour with HR). It required two hours of direct prep, not including the take home I'd done the week before, which is hard to gage the prep since I did a lot of general coming-up-to-speed on Angular that was only adjacent related.
The panel interview went really well.
It went so well I had an email Friday morning asking for availability to meet with the CPO and CEO, in other words, the final round. Was I available today? They're also available tomorrow (Saturday).
Yellow flag.
Unrelated, the interview with another company, we'll call them GBC, I'd hoped would be this week, is actually next Monday. Delay. The job at GBC is preferable, mainly because it's in React, and they have women on their team.
Friday 1/26 my conversation with the CPO was fantastic. The CEO on the other hand, wanted me to talk about my kids, and seemed uncomfortable in me thinking of myself as possibly a being a token. Did I mention their engineering team is composed of 100% white men?
Monday 1/29 I had a great panel interview with GBC, honestly didn't have enough time to chat with the Engineering manager, but what can I do? While on the call, I was notified they'd figure out how they wanted to do the tech assessment and asked for my availability. They scheduled it for Friday. On Thursday they rescheduled it for Monday.
In the meantime, radio silence from AXZ.
The problem with companies that want to do DEI, but are just getting started, or don't really know how to do it, is they want the Diversity, but don't understand the Inclusion. I'd made the CEO uncomfortable, and he wasn't willing to accept that, how do I know?
On Thursday 1/31, I had an introductory interview with a different company. We'll call them FFJ. During the call, the recruiter asked if I was in late stages, and I admitted I was, but also expressed low confidence, e.g. "I don't have high expectations because I should have heard from them by now."
During my technical interview with GBC, Monday 2/5, I received an email from my contact at AXY wanting another interview, for cultural fit. Asking for the interview was my red flag. I also knew, at this point, I didn't have much of a chance. They didn't want me, but haven't secured someone else.
Since I was in an interview, I didn't respond right away and AXZ scheduled me for 5pm that evening, though the initial offering also included 5pm the next night, along with some day time slots on Wednesday. I opted to move things around to keep the time slot, since me pushing back with be a red flag to them (go back to the inclusion aspect... nobody should be scheduled after hours!)
In the meantime my tech interview with GBC went okay. It wasn't a home run, but nowhere close to complete failure either. In normal times, I'd have been confident I did well, but these aren't normal times, and I've been here before so honestly, I'm not very confident. It doesn't help that I won't hear anything for 2-3 weeks! Hence, my willingness to move forward with AXZ!
After the interview, I reached out the FFJ, to see if I could move forward.
Interview that evening went fine. I enjoyed the conversation with the VP of Operations, who overlooks marketing, sales and customer service. It actually rekindled the parts of the job I would like!
Tuesday I was scheduled two live coding sessions for Thursday with FFJ.
Wednesday I reached out to AXZ for an update. Nothing.
Thursday morning 2/8 in my first live coding session with FFJ, I failed miserably. There were too many things I hadn't worked on for me to be successful in the given time frame. The interviewer was wonderful, kind, and helpful, but I knew I had no chance. After the call, I reached out to the scheduler to cancel the other live coding session and withdraw my application.
Nothing from AXZ. Nothing from GBC.
An introductory call set up for Monday afternoon with a new company.
Friday I finally got the rejection email from AXZ. I was told another candidate had more time as a lead, and could advance them faster. It might be true. It might be confirmation bias. It might be because they aren't serious about DEI, in addition to the stated truth. But another truth... there were some yellow and red flags at AXZ, and if I'd been employed I wouldn't have considered the job. I have to remind myself that to recover from my disappointment of another rejection.
Later that afternoon, I scheduled another introductory call. This one for Monday morning.
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