This is a lengthy review, but in the interest of honesty and transparency, I feel it's important to share for future candidates.

I was contacted by a King recruiter. Throughout the process, I had to regularly chase up my handler for next steps, with correspondence sometimes lasting weeks at a time. Although the recruiter was very professional and kind, providing many apologies and citing various internal reasons which may or may not have been in his control, this drew out what should have been a 2-3 week process to a longer than necessary 2-3 months.

Initially, I had many phone screens and video conferencing calls with senior engineering and studio management based in London, Stockholm, and Madrid. Then, a handful of face-to-face interviews on-site in Stockholm.

During the initial stages, I had an interview with a Senior VP at the King London Studio. The feedback I later received from King HR staff following this call was highly positive. During this interview with the Senior VP, it was explained that the same position of QA Director would open up in their London office soon.

During the same call, I was then offered the option to duplicate my application for the role in London, whereby I could skip the initial screening phase as I had already spoken to various staff from the London office. I accepted, and was told, and I quote, "we'll make that happen on our side" by the VP during our call. In the meantime, I continued with my application in Stockholm.

To this day, I have not heard from this Senior VP, or anyone else at King, regarding the London QA Director role. Despite my attempts to follow up and reach out to this VP directly via email, I was ignored, and I never heard back from anyone about the role. This was unprofessional and reflected badly on King management.

After completing the initial stages successfully, I was invited to fly out to Stockholm.

Each of the interviews on-site for the Stockholm QA Director role went well. During the interviews in Stockholm, I was told by directors that the role had not "yet" been finalized within the studio's organizational structure and that there were still discussions on the scope of responsibility for the role. This was suspiciously odd – why hire in the final stages for a role that had yet to have its position finalized within the company? Nonetheless, after the face-to-face interviews were complete, I returned home to London.

I was later contacted by the handler for this role, and was briefly explained that all my feedback for my interviews had been positive. However, following some organizational discussions, this role no longer exists. The handler kindly emphasized this had nothing to do with my own performance, which was somewhat reassuring. Management had simply decided the title would be changed to "QA Manager" – with a reduced scope, responsibility, and different positioning within the studio. This new role did not require the level of seniority or experience I had as an engineering director myself.

The most glaring and disappointing negative of the whole experience is I still have not been reimbursed for any of my travel expenses, 3 months after my invitation to travel to Stockholm with King. Despite being provided a travel expenses guideline and being told candidates are assured reimbursement by King, etc.

So, to summarize, after nearly 3 months of 6-7 interviews for a now non-existent role, riddled throughout with poor communication, empty assurances from management, and to finish it all off: left with unpaid candidate travel expenses, it is difficult to call the experience a good one.

Being strung along for 5-6 interviews, including being flown into an office from another country, just to be rejected on technicalities really does sting, and makes me regret the time that seems to have been wasted all around.

Given King is a large organization, I suspect they do not all operate the same way. However, in my decade-long career within software engineering and interviewing, this is probably the worst internal interview process I have ever had the misfortune of experiencing.

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