I applied through a recruiter. The process took 2 months.

I was contacted by a Nubank recruiter. The conversation was great, she said that Nubank had seen my profile and thought it would make sense for me to join the team. I was very clear and transparent, stating clearly that I had no practical knowledge of microservices, Clojure, and the technologies used by Nubank, and that I would not compromise on remote work, something I have been doing for over 4 years. She was very attentive, said that Nubank was looking to start a remote culture and that not having knowledge of the technologies they use was not a blocker, since they train the people they hire. At that moment I was totally sold, besides convincing me to participate in the process she managed to make me extremely motivated.

At the end of the conversation she said she would send me a link to schedule a technical conversation with a Nubank engineer. 4 days went by and I hadn't received any contact, I sent a follow-up and after that she sent me the link to schedule. The second stage was one of the best, initially the engineer seemed a bit nervous, like following a script he had been given. I tried to break the ice and ask things about his day-to-day and his experience at Nubank, after that the conversation flowed and was super cool, I really felt like working with him.

The next stage was a test, and after 1 week without hearing any news I sent another follow-up email asking about the progress. At this point I started to find it strange having to keep asking about the process, I thought about not continuing, but since I was very motivated and it was about Nubank, I let it slide. I received the test, did it, and sent it back.

After almost 3 weeks without any news, I sent another follow-up email to check on the progress, and only then was I contacted by another HR person to set travel dates for the on-site process in São Paulo. The contact with this other person was totally different, I didn't need to keep sending follow-up emails, she replied quickly, made it a priority to streamline everything in the best way possible, always helpful and attentive, flawless.

In São Paulo, I went through 2 more stages. The first was an architecture conversation with 2 Nubank engineers. It was a terrible experience, what was supposed to be something collaborative turned into a 'whiteboard'. This stage could easily have been a way to see how I did in a team, how I dealt with suggestions, etc., that was what I was expecting, but unfortunately, the engineer who was evaluating me gave me a real Nubank problem to design the architecture, using the tools that Nubank already uses, microservices, kafka, datomic, etc. (everything I had clearly stated beforehand that I had no knowledge or experience in, I had the feeling that either there was a huge communication failure here, or they really don't care).

While I tried to draw something on the board under pressure, he made a mocking face when I didn't give the answers he wanted to hear. No feedback is given, it's not clear what they want to evaluate. Fortunately, the other person accompanying him really tried to collaborate with me, like a team, she was responsible for not turning this into a complete fiasco. Time was up, he interrupted me and they left. At that moment I was finished, discouraged. All my excitement and drive were gone. Another 2 engineers arrived for the next stage, pair programming. Unlike the whiteboard, this stage was great, collaborative, they asked relevant questions, anyway, I felt like I was in a team.

I asked for feedback, wanted to know what they thought, how they felt, but, as in the whole process, there was no feedback, they said they couldn't give it, this was frustrating. About 1 week later I finally went to the last stage, the HR conversation. She asked several questions about culture, behavior, and the like. She said that now everyone who participated in my process would get together and talk about it. Nubank might make an offer, if they found it interesting, or not. 2 weeks passing without any contact, I sent a final follow-up email to the recruiter, asking for news about the process. I got no response. 4 days later, I received a placeholder email, sent by someone else, thanking me and saying that they chose not to send an offer.

I replied to the email asking for feedback, with no response. 2 months of process, quite a bit of time and energy dedicated and no feedback. Simply frustrating. I never imagined that a company that has one of the most fantastic user experiences I've ever seen would give me the worst experience I've ever had in hiring processes. I won't say that if I could go back in time I wouldn't have done it, I learned a lot, especially on how not to do certain things in selection processes that I might coordinate.

What would you do if you felt that someone on your team does not feel included?