I applied online. The process took two months.

They are trying to hire people in New Zealand, and I have been through the following interviews. I've been in the industry for more than 10 years now, and I should say this is one of the worst companies I've ever interviewed with. It was a total waste of time. I feel like I'm just a number to fill their HR's KPI.

• HR catch-up
• Technical assessment
• Technical interview
• Interview with the head of engineering
• Interview with the CTO (which did not happen in my case)

Firstly, they have someone from HR have a quick chat with you and send you a technical assessment. They said the interview would be quite straightforward once the assessment had been reviewed. If it passes, you will meet the team to have a follow-up technical interview to discuss, and then it would be another round for meeting the head of engineering, and follow up with the CTO interview.

The assessment itself is not very difficult, but it is one of those things that take time if you want to do it properly. I finished the assessment and was told that they would like to have the next round, which is the technical interview. Their HR changed the interview schedule a few times after I'd accepted the invite. This is completely rare in my past experience. It may make sense if someone scheduled an interview and would like to change once due to reasons, but not a few times. At this point in time, it already raised an alert that this wasn't normal to me at all. But I thought I would just finish the interview and see how it goes.

So the technical interview is more like a combination of a solution follow-up and a technical interview with the team I'm going to work for. I received word that they would like to continue my application after this technical round. The plan was to meet with the Head of Engineering (or similar title; it has been a while and I can't recall it). And the drama began here. They said they wanted to continue the application and notified me they would start to schedule the next round of interviews. They said the head of engineering was really busy, so it would take a bit of time. And I waited for about one week and got a date the following week, which meant that was already two weeks after my last round of interviews. So I accepted it.

Two weeks later, because I knew there was a bit of drama already, I sent an email one day before the interview. They sent me an email saying the interview would need to be rescheduled. I was shocked and asked them if they really wanted to continue with my application because my whole interview process had been rescheduled multiple times. They said the head of engineering was really busy, so they had to reschedule. And I accepted. They rescheduled to a date in another week, so three weeks from my last interview now.

The time was close, and I received another email to say the date was no longer working and they had to change to another time. Both the HR and the HR manager were sending me emails saying they were willing to proceed with my application. They apologised for the delay, and I thought it was almost the end of the interview and accepted to change to another day. So they scheduled another time. By that time, it was already four weeks after the last round of interviews.

The time arrived. They asked a guy who is working specifically in the security area (by the way, I wasn't interviewed for a security position). I was a bit uncomfortable with all those low-level security questions because I wasn't prepared for those and there wasn't a direct relationship between my role and security. They are not in the role either. I should say I could have performed better if the time was a bit shorter or there wasn't this much drama before. If they think this is important, they should put it into the technical assessment or the interview with the team I applied to.

As a result, I was told my application would not be continued straight after this interview. I wasn't eager for a job, and there are plenty of options available. But for those who are seriously looking for a role, I think you should stop the process if you see a sign of this. I think even for people that are casually looking, you should avoid wasting your time filling in their KPI. It is full of lies and a complete waste of time. I've been through four rounds and been rejected. Avoid being a spare tire, especially wasting my time in interviews, assessments, and rescheduling the interviews. Stop it when you are seeing this sign!

I can't remember all of those.