I participated in a hiring drive conducted in Hyderabad for the SDE-2 role. It was a frustrating experience.

There were four rounds of interviews:

• Machine coding & evaluation
• Problem-solving and design

After these, there was the Hiring Manager round. Due to time constraints, I was unable to complete the Hiring Manager round, which turned out to be the worst decision. They decided to conduct this round via Google Hangouts on another day. After multiple follow-ups, HR scheduled the interview. However, without any intimation to HR, the hiring manager did not show up for the interview.

Again, after multiple calls from me, they scheduled the interview a week later. To my disbelief, the Hiring Manager again did not conduct the interview. There was no communication from HR.

After a few apologies, HR scheduled the Hiring Manager round with a different manager, which I attended a week later.

After regularly following up with HR (who never bothered to call me), I received feedback that everything was positive and that they would get back to me with further updates after debriefing. Again, there was no communication from HR.

After calling her a few times, she sent me an email stating that the debriefing was positive. She asked me to forward my payslips, CTC breakup, and the other company's offer letter. She told me that she would get back within three working days.

Assuming everything was positive, I rejected other offers. After four days, I called her to get a status update. She said the offer letter was sent for approval and I would receive it by the next morning at the latest.

After not receiving any update from them for a few more days, I called HR again. To my frustration, she replied that because of organizational restructuring, my offer was on hold and hiring had been frozen.

After arguing for some time, as I had already rejected other offers, she gave a lame justification that it was never mentioned in an email that I was selected and stated that my design skills were not up to expectation. She added that they would conduct a design round if they started hiring again.

This was a totally frustrating experience. HR never bothered to communicate anything. I had to call them every time to get an update. I rejected other offers because of this failed process by one of India's top e-commerce companies. It was the worst experience ever.

Design Chess Game.