Round 1: 4 days to complete a 75-minute take-home HackerRank challenge.

This was actually really fun! The questions were challenging, and the tests were pretty heavy, so it really tested the efficiency of my solution. Because it was so fun, I spent a couple of days optimizing my solution to the practice problem they provided before attempting the 75-minute code challenge.

1. 1-hour technical interview with an engineer via CoderPad and Zoom.

This was difficult but went pretty well. The engineer who interviewed me was professional and supportive during the process. Overall, a really good experience.

1. 20-minute phone "conversation."

This was an awful experience.

When my interviewer hadn't called me after 10 minutes beyond our scheduled meeting time, I became concerned that I had missed a Zoom link. So, I emailed my interviewer and asked, but never got a response.

Thirty-eight minutes later, I received a call from my interviewer (48 minutes late for a 20-minute call).

The interviewer did not acknowledge they were late nor ask if this was still a good time.

Life happens; things don't always go to plan. That's life. I don't think my interviewer needed to make a big thing out of being late, but it does feel like saying nothing expressed, "I know I'm late and I don't really care how it impacts you." Okay, maybe that's harsh, but at the very least, I do feel it expressed a demeaning lack of regard for the impact this had on me and my partner.

I had prepared some questions to ask my interviewer and some things that I wanted to touch on as I shared my experience. However, since the call was late, my partner had a conflicting work call (which she had already rescheduled to allow time for my call). So, I had to briskly walk outside and take the call without any of the notes I'd prepared.

I put "conversation" in quotes because there was nothing conversational about this experience.

Perhaps my interviewer had a tough day and wasn't aware of their tone, but this HR professional was curt, robotic, and borderline rude with me. I felt they couldn't wait to get off the call.

The interviewer said I should hear back from her in the next 4 days. Five days later, I sent an email to check in and express gratitude for my technical interviewer and received an automatic out-of-office reply stating my interviewer would be away for the week.

At this point, I think there's a good chance my application has been lost or forgotten.

The out-of-office reply provided a couple of alternatives for contact. I chose the contact for the Ignite program and sent an email asking if I was still under consideration. No response.

I received an offer from another company the next week. I sent another email stating I'd received an offer and asking if I was still under consideration. I finally got a response: "Congrats on your offer; we've decided to pursue other candidates." And (I'm paraphrasing here), "we don't share feedback, so don't ask."

As I consider how this post would have been different if I had received an offer, I want to express that the majority of this process was really great!

Pros:

• The code challenges were fair. Actually super fun!
• The engineer who performed my technical interview was a fabulous interviewer.

Cons:

• Unfortunately, the HR professional assigned to you really matters.
• Ultimately, I didn't trust the ability of the HR professional assigned to me to keep track of my application.

This put me in a no-win situation: either I try to stay involved in my process in hopes of not getting forgotten and risk coming across as pesky or needy, or I do nothing and rely on the professionalism of someone I have experienced as unprofessional.

Come on, I don't want to ruin the surprise! The question threw me off, but the interview was more conversational than I anticipated. A big part of this was just talking through the process of finding a solution.