All my interviewers were super cool, and from the questions asked, I was quite happy that I was going to the right team.

However, there was an equally bad experience on the hiring/recruiting front.

Communication was poor, infrequent, or nonexistent unless it was absolutely required from their side. Just don't expect responses to emails or phone calls.

There were multiple goof-ups in the interview process:

• The agenda/sequence of rounds changed multiple times.
• For example, I was asked to skip a lunch/errand slot, but they went ahead and rescheduled something in that same window without validating with the candidate.
• Multiple times, they failed to walk the talk. The candidate was put in a frustrating waiting loop, and the overall interview process lasted for multiple months.

It didn't matter if the interviewer was immediately available and ready to finish interviews and join within an overall 1-2 week period. They simply didn't care about the organization, only their day-to-day tasks, and that too seemed forceful. Poor experience.

I will be careful in choosing a team/hiring manager if I apply again.

As IBM is a huge organization, it's hard to generalize the experience to the entire organization. There might be a few bad apples in the recruiting cycle.

Project/related-technology/scenario-based discussion

Take-home assignment:

• Coding
• System design
• Assignment review