I applied through a recruiter. The process took four weeks.

I was approached by a recruiter on LinkedIn. After an informal written correspondence, an interview was scheduled with a completely different recruiter. The interview went very smoothly. The recruiter was extremely enthusiastic about my profile and experience. However, it became apparent that they were trying to fill a position for a midweight Software Engineer. I had not held the position of an individual contributor for some years, and even then it was at a higher seniority level. When I pointed that out and stated that I would only be interested in management or leadership opportunities, the recruiter acted surprised and asked, "Oh, but do you have management experience?". Either they hadn't actually glanced at my LinkedIn and had not listened to a word I said during the last 15 minutes, or they were desperate to fill their Software Engineer position and for some obscure reason assumed I would be desperate to apply as well.

The interview ended with the recruiter reiterating they really wanted me to join Doctolib and that they would contact me as soon as a new Engineering Manager position opened. They even indicated that they would get a position created specifically for me if things got pressing on my side at any point. A couple of months later, I noticed that new Engineering Manager positions had opened on the Doctolib website, but didn't hear back from the recruitment team. Other companies were making much stronger impressions with their own recruitment processes, so I decided not to follow up. Remember, interviews are a two-way street. If you want to poach top engineers and managers from top companies, offer them top positions and top packages. Don't be arrogant and assume they'll come running to you just because you've recently achieved unicorn hype.

What are your current role and responsibilities?