I applied by myself, and a recruiter from Klarna reached out to me really quickly, which was a pleasant surprise considering the market state. The rounds were:

• Recruiter chat (15 minutes)
• Logical test
• Two take-home coding exercises (algorithm-focused, but without a time limit, which is a big plus in my opinion).

Then there were three interviews over two days:

• System design
• Behavioral
• Coding (React-focused)

All of the interviewers seemed nice and professional. I received very good feedback from the technical ones and poor/mediocre feedback from the behavioral one, which was a big surprise to me. The biggest shock was that the interviewer was concerned about whether I am able to work remotely, despite the fact that he knew I had been working remotely for the past 3+ years. Maybe I didn’t match the “leadership principles.” I don’t know.

Then the recruiter reached out to me and told me that the behavioral interview feedback was not good but not fully blocking me from the next step (team interview). However, it’s been almost a month since then, and she hasn’t been able to find me a team to interview with.

It wasn’t a complete waste of time; it was a valuable experience. But it’s weird how the opinion of someone who has never met me before and most likely wouldn’t again, even if I was hired, is more important than the impression of potential peers. This is considering the positive technical feedback and the recommendations (including behavioral aspects) I could have provided from past jobs during the background check stage.

I don’t know, maybe the position never actually existed.

Would like to avoid the disclosure.