I recently interviewed for a Data Engineer II position at Mastercard, and my experience was extremely frustrating. The process consists of four rounds, including a recruiter round that covers basic questions about data transformation and ETL steps. After this, there are three onsite virtual interviews.

Round 1: Senior Data Engineer (1 hour) This round involved behavioral questions for 20-25 minutes followed by designing a data model. The interviewer was decent, and everything seemed to go well. I moved on to the next round.

Round 2: Manager (1 hour) This round focused on SQL queries, with the complexity of the questions increasing step by step. The interview went well, and I progressed to the next round.

Round 3: VP (1 hour) This round included behavioral questions for 20-25 minutes followed by a case study. For example, we discussed estimating bids if Starbucks decided to take orders using iPads instead of traditional lines. The interviews seemed to go well, and the recruiter was quick to respond throughout the process.

However, after the final interview, I was left waiting for confirmation, only to be eventually rejected. This pattern repeated several times, with the job being reposted each time. It felt as though they were not actually hiring for the position but were instead conducting interviews to maintain the appearance of being an active hiring company.

The whole process seemed like a complete waste of time. What is the point of conducting these interviews if the job is never filled and just reposted repeatedly? It seems like a misleading tactic to give the impression that the company is actively hiring when that clearly isn’t the case.

The topics covered were basic SQL and behavioral questions.