Apparently, this group is QA for eBay's kernel and requires high Java and SQL proficiency. The interview here sure was an "interesting" one.

The interview started well. I liked the hiring manager; he was upbeat and asked relevant technical and non-technical questions. All other interviewers were foreign and all seemed somewhat depressed. In one way or another, they all said, "I am capable of doing better than a QE job, but this is the best I landed." The director came in with food for the interview and sort of creeped me out in general.

The highlight was... ahem... the Principal QA (apparently), who reminded me of my school teacher – yes, complete with glasses and all. Her fundamentals of Java were messed up (but perhaps she has a lot of practice writing code on paper), and she was adamant, raising her voice and asking questions like, "Is that so?" "How sure are you?"

I realized right then that if I took up this job, it would be the biggest mistake of my life. I wanted the interview to be over. I thought the woman was treating me like I was an urchin asking for her help. She goes down in my "most horrible person(s) I have met" list.

In conclusion, I sent an "I am not interested" email this morning.

General questions about the eBay website, layout, concepts, workflow, etc.

General questions about Java Collections and similar topics.