The interview process was quite disorganized.

I originally applied for a 100% remote Senior Data Engineer position. A third-party recruiter reached out to me, but as you'll see later in my post, I was drastically misled.

First, I received an online coding challenge for algorithms and data structures.

Next, I received an online coding challenge for SQL/DB.

I waited about a week before hearing feedback about the first challenge and about 1.5 weeks before I heard back regarding the second challenge.

Next, I received a virtual interview with one of the team's engineers, where we covered a couple of data structure/algorithm-related challenges.

After receiving feedback, I attended another virtual interview with a Senior Data Analyst on their team, where we covered Data Quality Management in regards to data pipelines.

After hearing positive feedback about the previous interview, I received an invitation for a final virtual interview with the hiring manager. Here's where I started to realize that the original position I applied to was not what it seemed...

While talking with the hiring manager, I was asked the standard question: "What part of the position are you most interested in?" To which I responded, "I'm very interested in data modeling and developing data pipelines." The interviewer looked surprised and asked if I knew what the job description for this position was. I told him I had applied for a Senior Data Engineer position. He responded by saying that this would be a "Data Quality Engineer," which is essentially a data pipeline QA role.

I informed him that there had been a mix-up between the position I applied for and the one I was interviewing for (how awkward!). I then pulled up the job description that I had originally looked over. The one I had and the one the hiring manager had were two totally different job descriptions!

I asked the hiring manager if I could circle back with my recruiter to address the discrepancy, and he agreed that we could sync up after I did that. I won't go into who is to blame for that mistake because I honestly don't know myself.

Basically, after this, I politely declined to continue interviewing for the role because I was looking for more of a development role and wasn't interested in QA.

The hiring manager then made a very generous offer to increase the compensation by more than 14% and told me that I would still be working with the data pipeline and could become familiar with their company's technologies, eventually moving into the actual position down the road.

Although I didn't like the idea of working in a position I wasn't interested in, I was also thinking about how beneficial the compensation would be for my family. I decided to take the opportunity, and my recruiter informed me that I should be receiving an offer letter in the next day or so.

I then received a meeting request from the recruiter to meet with a few people from the Disney side and talk about one last thing before we went forward with the offer...

In this final meeting, the hiring manager informed me that although this position was going to be remote for the next couple of months, they were expecting all their staff to move back into the office in approximately 3-5 months. This came as a huge shock to me! I had no intentions of relocating, and the recruiter was also not aware of this requirement.

I told them that I could do a hybrid during the duration of my contract (this was a contract-to-hire position), and then if they took me on full-time, I would relocate to one of their offices. I told them I wouldn't take the position unless I would be allowed to work from home except for 1-2 days in the office per month to sync up.

They never responded.

Data structures:

• Stack

Algorithms

Big O notation

SQL:

• Joins
• Where clause
• Temp tables

Data quality