Last year, I was approached by Netflix for a position in their API development team. This was part of their overall streaming initiative, so I was quite interested in this post, as it aligned with my existing activities and future career goals.

I had a phone interview with one of their directors and was eventually called in for an in-person interview. The setup for the interview went fine, but the actual interview process was not very professionally handled.

The first person interviewing me showed up late and did not even have a copy of my resume to reference. Fortunately, I carry spares, so I provided him with one. He gave it a cursory look and then started asking interview questions that were not at all related to the job itself. I am not certain if this person even knew what position I had applied for. He seemed generally disinterested in my answers and spent time on his laptop, paying little attention to my responses. It was not very professional.

I was then interviewed by someone from HR. She was very young and quite arrogant, which was an issue with several individuals I interacted with.

I then interviewed with a program manager who was the only decent individual in the group, likely because he was a recent hire and not yet absorbed into their 'Borg culture.'

As I was ready to go to my next interview, the hiring manager took me aside and said he was ending the interviews, stating they were looking for someone more 'technical.' I am not sure how he concluded I wasn't technical by their standards based on feedback from only one source (the first interviewer), so it rubbed me the wrong way. Nonetheless, I thanked them for their time and left.

This was right before their dramatic fall from grace and the price hike and Qwikster debacles, so he probably did me a favor anyway.

How would you design an SLA-based system, and how would it function?