I was contacted via email by a recruiter in January, saying "they were impressed by my resume and would like to speak." I immediately recognized the recruiter's name. This was the fourth time she had contacted me in 2.5 years with the exact same email. I had responded immediately to her previous emails, after which I received no response.

We arranged a time to speak on the phone. When we spoke, I mentioned that she had contacted me three months earlier and that when I responded, I never heard from her again. She had no recollection. I didn't bother to tell her this was a pattern and that it had happened three more times besides this.

She then went on to set up an interview between myself and the hiring manager for the following week.

I spoke with the hiring manager and felt that it went really well. After this, I heard nothing for a week. I finally decided to reach out to the recruiter and told her I thought it went very well. She responded that the hiring manager thought so as well and that the next step would be a "take-home programming assignment."

I was then given the assignment, which I completed and submitted. Two weeks passed, and I didn't hear anything from the recruiter. I then reached out to her again and asked if there was any status update on my candidacy. This was now the second time that I had to "drive" the process.

After another three weeks, a code review was finally scheduled. I walked two SREs through my code and explained my choices, etc. This interview also seemed to be positive.

Another couple of weeks passed, and I heard nothing from the recruiter. I decided to reach out again. This time, I was told there was a second assignment I needed to complete: reviewing a pull request. I completed this assignment immediately and pinged the recruiter to let her know I had finished.

Another couple of weeks passed, and I heard nothing from the recruiter. By now, it was actually March. This process started in January. I reached out yet again to the recruiter, and we spoke on the phone. She explained to me that everything had gone well and that I would now be moving forward to the final round of interviews and asked if I could provide some available times to schedule this. I added time slots to her and her coordinator's calendar. And then, again, I heard nothing – more radio silence from her.

Finally, her coordinator got back to me and said that the times I had provided coincided with the company's offsite meeting and asked if I could add some more times. I added some more time to their calendar and then heard nothing. Three weeks passed, and it was basically April at this point. I then received an email from the recruiter saying, "We have decided to not hire for the position now," adding that "I should check back in the future."

You cannot make this stuff up. These people are not only disrespectful of other people's time but generally seem to be "out to lunch" and absent-minded.

My guess is that the rest of the company has no idea how their recruiting team is representing them. I have since talked to other people who had similar experiences, so this is clearly not an anomaly.

My advice would be: Don't waste your time with these folks.

Previous work experience, DNS questions, Code review questions, Typical stuff.