The recruiter's virtual assistant was quick to reach out and schedule a phone screening. During the screening, the recruiter immediately bait-and-switched me to a position that I didn't apply to, even though the position's preferred minimum years of experience exceeded mine by quite a bit. During the rest of the screening, the recruiter showed no real interest in my experience or qualifications. They seemed more focused on my availability to complete an online assessment before speaking with anyone on the hiring team.

Ignoring the red flags, I completed the timed OA, which consisted of multiple medium-level difficulty coding problems on Codility.

Once the OA was reviewed by the hiring team, I was requested to participate in the final 1-hour interview. The recruiter described it as a behavioral/technical discussion with the hiring manager, but it was really a panel interview with the director and two senior-level software engineers. No behavioral questions were asked. The director barely spoke and simply sat there observing while the software engineers asked excessively vague system design and DevOps questions. Halfway through the interview, I decided to call it and expressed that I was not interested in the position or continuing the interview because the recruiter clearly miscommunicated the position's expected level of experience and knowledge.

I rated this interview difficult due to the unprofessional bait-and-switch tactic used by the recruiter. It was clear that the recruiter prioritized meeting a quota or personal metric over accurately matching a candidate to the appropriate position. In result, they simply wasted my time and their co-workers' time.

1. Multiple string manipulation-based coding questions.
2. In-depth system design and DevOps questions.