I was contacted by a Capital One recruiter regarding a Full Stack Engineer position. When the recruiter contacted me, she indicated in writing that the base salary for the position was $90,000.

When the interview time arrived, the interviewer for Capital One was late to the phone call, which is unprofessional.

The interviewer then explained how the interview process with Capital One would proceed. I would need to practice Capital One's coding challenges several times before taking the final coding challenge, she said, which was pass/fail. If I passed the final coding challenge, I would expect to do at least four rounds of interviews. It sounded like there might be more interviews after that, which weren't really interviews, she said, for team "matching" purposes. The process could take weeks to a month or more.

After hearing about the process, I mentioned to the interviewer that it seemed unusual to have so many steps for what was a $90K per year position.

The interviewer paused, then said: "Who told you that the job was for $90K?" When I gave the interviewer the recruiter's name, the interviewer flat-out denied that the salary mentioned to me was $90K.

When I told the recruiter I had proof in writing that Capital One had said the position paid a salary of $90K, the interviewer offered a mealy-mouthed apology and tried to dance around how much the position actually paid. After I pressed the interviewer, the recruiter had no choice but to tell me that even entry-level positions start at a base salary of at least $120,000. As a developer with experience, I was not interviewing for an entry-level position.

Despite catching Capital One in a serious lie, the interviewer did not seem to pick up on the fact that Capital One had a severe credibility issue. Instead, the interviewer kept trying to stress how great it is to work at Capital One.

So I asked: "Why tell me that the base salary is $90K when the position actually starts at a minimum of $120K? Why not lead with that?"

The interviewer said she didn't know and struggled with an answer before saying that she "usually doesn't discuss salary" with interviewees, as if it were okay.

Because why tell people they're being lowballed when you can trick them into working for less than what the position actually pays? Gotta get that cheap labor somehow.

The interviewer then asked if I had any more questions about salary or if I wanted to hear more about the position. I politely said no thanks.

What's in your wallet, Capital One? Is it $90K... or is it actually $30K more?

Tech stack I've worked on