My worst interviewing experience.

The process started with a quick HR call, followed by a HackerRank test. The test was poorly compiled. It started with a SQL question that didn’t have a table name and therefore couldn’t run against the engine. Other questions were poorly worded, and some asked to correct given code by copying it from one text area to another while copy-paste was disabled. Imagine copying text row by row, scrolling up and down each time.

Anyways, I passed the test and was scheduled for a video interview with three managers. All of them were late for the session by 10 minutes, and none apologized.

They started the questioning right away without introducing themselves or the company. The questions were poorly formulated, and the interviewers were not collaborative. Asking questions or trying to narrow down the scope didn’t help; they simply waited for very specific answers they had in mind. Answering a question was always followed by a quick ‘ok’—no feedback whatsoever.

They mixed and mixed-up the terminology, making it even harder to understand what they are looking for.

The most senior manager couldn’t put two words together in English—just gives you an idea of what kind of environment you are about to work in.

Throughout the interview, I had a feeling that I’m dealing with not overly intelligent people who try to fail you just to feel better about themselves.

They are full of themselves for no particular reason and think they’re doing you a favor for even considering you for the job.

This company has a very bad reputation in the Vancouver area for its toxic work environment, outdated technology (developers work on old desktops and don’t get laptops to take home), and low quality of products. Now I understand why; no self-respecting engineer would come to work here.

There is also something fishy about their rating on Glassdoor (notice the 5-star reviews coming on the same day for particular areas).

I’m not even waiting for HR to reply; this is definitely not a place I want to work at.

Hr: Tree depth calculation, sort stack, simple JavaScript/CSS/HTML, code fix, and some multiple-choice questions.

In person: How do you debug a SQL query?