First, I was sent an email asking me to describe my technical experience, successes, failures, interests, availability, and answer a few technical questions.

Then, I had a phone technical interview where I was asked many general technical questions (e.g., "describe how the internet works," "describe agile programming practices") and then a few coding questions.

I was asked to come on-site the following week. They mentioned they were on a tight schedule and wanted all on-site interviews completed within that week. Since I'm not from New York, this required some planning. However, the recruiter(s) didn't respond until the day before the interview. So, I skipped school, traveled to New York, took a taxi to Brooklyn, interviewed, and immediately came all the way back (a 4-5 hour trip each way).

There were four interviews:

The first woman didn't really have any questions for me. She asked what teams (from a list) I would be most interested in, and I told her and explained why. Then, she just kind of sat there, spinning in her chair, looking at the ground, and checking the time on her phone. I started asking her questions because I had no idea what she wanted, but she was very shy, making it difficult to connect. She clearly didn't want to be interviewing.

The next two interviewers asked me coding/whiteboard questions. Neither interview was tricky for me, and I enjoyed them a lot. I certainly answered everything correctly and received positive responses from both men.

The fourth and final interview was also non-technical and focused on which teams might be a good fit for me. I really liked the guy, and we talked for the entire hour about Etsy, the industry, and what to look for in entry-level jobs. He said I would be a great fit there, and overall, it seemed like a good day.

After the interviews, the recruiter gave me a tour of the place and then promised to email me the following Wednesday. He said if I hadn't heard by then, I should email him.

Well, Wednesday came and went. Friday came and went, and I sent the recruiter an email. Then, another week passed. I emailed the scheduling recruiter as well to see what was happening, but received no responses from anyone I emailed.

Over a month went by before I finally got an email from the recruiter saying that they couldn't decide who to hire. They had many good candidates and not enough positions, so they needed more time to choose fairly (what happened to their strict timeline?). He said he'd have an answer in a week.

Well, that was two months ago, and I still haven't gotten a response. I missed school to interview with them, spent 8+ hours traveling to be there, and I never even received an email.

I've never had an on-site interview with a company and not at least received a phone call, whether the news was good or bad. I'm quite stunned that Etsy handles its applicants this way. A simple "thanks for applying, but..." email goes a long way.

There were some tricky general questions in the phone interview about distributed processing.