I recently interviewed for a Senior Engineering role with EA Sports (Electronic Arts) for their Shanghai Studio, based out of the Kuala Lumpur office.

The overall interview process was professional, and I appreciated the opportunity to meet several members of the team across four rounds, including an initial recruiter screening, two core technical rounds, and a final round with a director-level leader.

Throughout the process, all the interviewers were highly positive during the sessions and provided encouraging feedback afterward, which made me feel confident about the fit and my performance.

After completing all four rounds, I was informed that I had passed the interviews. The recruiter then shared a proposed compensation package, where the basic salary was already lower than my current one. Despite this, I responded positively, taking into account EA’s brand value, long-term growth opportunities, and other benefits.

Unfortunately, things took an unexpected turn when a more senior recruiter later came back with a revised offer, and this time with an even lower base salary. Given current market standards and my compensation history, I found it difficult to accept in good faith.

What followed was nearly two weeks of silence, during which I was told internal discussions were ongoing. Eventually, I was informed that the company would not be revising the base salary, and the offer process ended there with no real attempt to revisit the earlier discussion or find a balanced solution.

From my perspective, the misalignment could have been prevented early on. The recruiter was informed of my current and expected salary, as well as EA’s internal budget for the role. Still, the process was pushed forward through all rounds despite the eventual mismatch. This disconnect caused unnecessary delays, false hope, and wasted effort on both sides.

It’s disappointing that a company with EA’s reputation would let a process go this far without first aligning on such a fundamental aspect. I hope EA reconsiders how compensation discussions are handled in future hiring processes, to ensure a better and more respectful experience for candidates.

The technical interview was thorough and engaging, covering core backend topics like real-time communication (TCP/UDP), memory management, thread safety, and Java fundamentals. I appreciated how the discussion focused not just on correctness, but on performance, scalability, and design trade-offs. It was a strong reflection of EA’s engineering depth.