This was for the Monsoon team in Oakland, which Capital One acquired a few years ago.

The in-person interview started with a case study. This was the best part of the day. I know I did well here, and so did the interviewer, who was remote.

The next interview was with a Principal Engineer with whom this role would work closely. This was good too, and we had interesting architecture discussions.

The third interview was with the Director, whom I had spoken to on the phone earlier. The Director started by saying that they had reposted the job with more emphasis on a particular skill set and that he was now wondering if this position would be located elsewhere. This set off alarm bells. He then proceeded to ask me a set of canned interview questions.

The next interviewer was the worst. When he entered the room, I asked if I could have his email address. To this, the interviewer responded in a hostile way, saying he could not. He then proceeded to ask another round of behavioral questions, but went back and forth on situational questions, making the whole process convoluted. There was no way I could be working with this person. It appeared he felt threatened by me interviewing there. I gritted my teeth, spoke to the last interviewer, and fled the place.

If you are going to change the job requirements and the location of the position, please have the decency to inform the candidate before they show up. Please train your managers/tech leads on how to interview candidates.

Do not go to the Oakland office; they have some real oddballs in there.

Team conflicts, substituting for an engineer on your team, etc.