I've been holding this in for months so that I could have some time to process this experience.

The weirdest part of the interview was that there was a person in one of my interviews who said they were "just there to make sure the process is being followed." That's definitely not a great way to make a candidate feel comfortable.

Also, the recruiter told me that Capital One was broadening their hiring practices to be more inclusive of great talent who didn't have much Java experience, but then one tech lead hammered me on Java questions. I liked the recruiter; he was very kind and seemed like he genuinely wanted me to succeed in getting hired. I felt he prepared me well.

Also, 3 of my 4 interviewers were good/great (all very nice), and one was a very poor interviewer and also lacked EQ skills. This was surprising, since the more junior developer was more personable. Is this what being a leader at Capital One constitutes?

He was the technical lead who, the woman who said she was "just there to make sure the process was followed," sat in on.

That was super uncomfortable for me (and him, I think). Additionally, he asked questions as if he assumed I didn't know them, as if he wanted me to fail the interview. Or at least, that's how it felt. When I answered the questions, he just went right on to the next one, with no follow-up questions.

This brings me to another point: feedback. At least 2, maybe 3 interviewers gave me feedback as I went through the process. This tech lead gave no feedback and just kept asking questions robotically. I am a human being. I have emotions. I am not a command prompt.

Another weird thing was that he asked me about CI/CD tools. I mentioned Jenkins and other tools I had worked with, and also described how I used those tools.

Then, he made a weird point of mentioning CircleCI, which is the tool his team used, as if only that tool was the answer he expected. There are many, many CI/CD tools out there. Shouldn't he care more about whether or not someone has experience in any tool rather than just their one?

It seemed like he really didn't want to give me a chance. I felt like I was written off. It made me question whether or not I was being discriminated against; I still don't know, and I feel uncomfortable every time I think about it. I even talked to a friend who used to work there, and he thought the interaction I had with this tech lead seemed fishy.

I really feel like I dodged a bullet by not receiving an offer here. I have some friends who have worked there that have had less than spectacular experiences.

My advice: maybe Capital One is a good place to work, but be careful, the experience isn't super consistent across the organization. Maybe it's a great place for some, but it didn't make me feel very included overall because of this one tragic experience.

When I asked why I received no offer, the answer was that I did not have enough Java experience. Which, honestly, is a very fair assessment. I told that to them going into the process. It feels like a weird outcome for someone who mentioned that, passed the online coding assessment, went through half a day of interviews, studied for the interview, and went through a long, one-month process trying to get hired.

Q: Name an ORM used to access a Java database.