I initially had a phone call with a recruiter who was really helpful at every step of the way during the entire process.

Then, I was asked to solve a 3-hour coding challenge related to a REST service and JSON data processing. This exercise was easy but time-consuming.

After successfully completing it, I had an on-site scheduled with a manager and another senior IC. The interview with the manager was more on the behavioral side.

The technical interview question was a very easy LeetCode array question, and I solved it completely. Throughout the technical interview, the interviewer seemed confused with my approach and kept nudging me in other directions, which caused me to lose a lot of time.

She was poker-faced whenever I asked any clarifying questions and kept counter-questioning me. For example, the input to the question was not stated with her problem statement. When I asked if I could choose it to be a list, she said, "Choose whatever you want." After choosing a list as the input, I stated my solution accordingly, and then she asked me to use an array as the input.

I had heard so many good things about HubSpot's interview process and did not expect this. Perhaps there are always some bad eggs in the basket, and I was unlucky to encounter one.

So, despite solving the coding challenge and the tech interview question, I was rejected. It was a waste of 5 hours.

This may be just my experience, but I wanted to share it with the community.

Also, I don't know why, but HubSpot pays what seems too little for a senior engineer level, and their stock sharing is peanuts.

Most of the questions are already shared in Gladiator, and HubSpot also knows about this.