I applied through their job portal online and was contacted by the first recruiter in the third week of January. We exchanged emails, and she had me fill out a couple of forms before handing me over to another recruiter. This recruiter, in turn, handed me over to yet another.

The recruiter coordination was not good, and their responses were all over the place. Two recruiters were working together to schedule my phone interview. They managed to convert the interview time from PST to my local time with an hour-long error, which resulted in me waiting for the phone screen call an hour earlier than it actually was. I had given up, assuming the person wouldn't call, but then I received a call an hour later.

The interview itself was appallingly conducted. First, the interviewer seemed to be in a room with a lot of echo. Second, he must have been using some kind of phone system on speaker or something similar because I could hear my own voice echoed back. I mentioned this to him twice, as it made it difficult to hear his words with the reverberation blurring his voice and my own echoing.

The first time, he suggested I must be using a headset with the microphone too far from my mouth. I told him I wasn't using a headset, but he waved it away.

The second time, he said the same thing. By then, I had given up on the interview. I couldn't hear much, and he wasn't helping. Trying to decipher the conversation while simultaneously trying to code had become a horrible adventure. Besides, he wasn't listening to half of what I said, whether I was explaining my problem-solving method or expressing my concern about not being able to hear over the garble.

Some of the initial questions (icebreakers) he asked regarding my resume felt pointedly patronizing. However, I understand that a phone screen doesn't provide enough indicators for these things, and I could be wrong.

The questions themselves covered basic programming, then some threading, concurrency, and MapReduce trivia.

I understand many people have the ambition or life goal to work for this company. Perhaps to them, this process might be forgivable. Most interviews probably aren't like this, and I might have had an exception. I consider this disrespectful of my time and an unwillingness to listen to what I could potentially provide.

Nothing too difficult.

Many trivia questions.