A recruiter contacted me, mentioning he was following up with past CodeJam participants. While I wasn't intending to change jobs at that point, I decided to accept an interview.

I spoke with him on the phone, and he asked simple questions (e.g., experience in developing mobile apps, intention to move to California, etc.). He then introduced me to another recruiter who is based in Seattle. I spoke with her on the phone, and she scheduled an onsite interview at the Seattle office.

I didn't have phone interviews, possibly because I had passed through them in the past (I was rejected at the onsite stage), or possibly because I'm currently working in Seattle and they didn't need to reimburse for transportation and lodging.

I had interviews with 5 engineers and 1 engineer for lunch. The questions were rather simple and of moderate difficulty. While I thought I performed well on the questions, the recruiter called me a week after the interview and informed me that the hiring committee decided not to make an offer.

As others have also stated, I was not given any feedback. The recruiter did mention it was "close," though I don't know if she actually had detailed information about my interview.

What's frustrating and made me feel negative about the process is the lack of feedback. I don't even know if it was due to my performance during the interview or because of my past experience (I'm not a software engineer currently, and coding isn't my main job responsibility). I explicitly asked the recruiter about this, but she didn't clarify. I suspect it's the latter, and if that's the case, this whole process was a total waste of time, but I'll never know.

Another reason for my negative feeling is that the recruiter left a message on my home phone stating she needed to follow up about the interview. The fact that I was interviewing was a secret to my family, and I had repeatedly asked the recruiter not to call my home phone, but she didn't seem to care.

This has created a situation within my family that is even bigger than the fact that I was rejected. Recruiters should be more careful about each candidate's privacy, though failed candidates may not be important to them.

I signed an NDA and cannot disclose questions.

However, in my case, there were no complicated questions.

I could choose to code either on a Chromebook or on the whiteboard.