An Unpleasant Experience.

Recruiter call. Easy HackerRank challenge. Onsite with three 45-minute technical interviews.

The onsite started with a "tour," which the recruiter used as an excuse to ask intrusive and uncomfortable questions. Examples included: "What other companies are you interviewing with?" (I made the mistake of telling her), "Why did you apply to that company?", "Are you interested in the _____ industry? Is that why you applied to that company?", and "How does the Hubspot campus compare to the company you interned at?". This "tour" lasted around 20 minutes and completely drained my energy while I was trying to dodge inappropriate questions that had nothing to do with Hubspot.

The actual place was alright. It had decent design, but the departments are scattered across disconnected floors and buildings. People from one department have to walk outside in below-freezing weather to get to meetings in another. There is no cafeteria or dining hall like at TripAdvisor or other Silicon Valley companies for those with "first world problems."

The technical interviews were rushed. Each interviewer asked 5-8 questions on work experiences/projects from the resume. 45 minutes wasn't enough time; an hour would have been more reasonable. The interviewers kept looking at the time throughout the interviews.

There was another round of uncomfortable questions from the recruiter after the technical interviews. This time, she tried to get me to verbally accept an offer without presenting one, likely to compromise my negotiation position. She asked, "What could we do to make you 100% accept the offer?" Then she started talking about how other companies I applied to were a poor fit for me. The recruiter never ran out of uncomfortable questions. The experience was worse than cold-call telemarketing and high-pressure sales.

She told me the interviewers were meeting up in a few minutes and she would let me know the results the day after. She called two days later to say the interviewers were meeting that day (even though she said they were meeting two days prior) and she would let me know the next day. I didn't hear anything from her for five more days until I pinged her for an update.

All the technical questions are on here. Make sure you read the Facebook/Twitter news feed implementation documents.

Here are some potential interview questions:

• What other companies are you interviewing with?
• Why did you apply to this company?
• Are you interested in the _____ industry? Is that why you applied to this company?
• How does the Hubspot campus compare to the company where you interned?
• What could we do to make you 100% accept the offer?