I received a referral from a good friend for this role. The first round was with a recruiter, who explained the role and the expectations—very standard and nothing special.

I went to the second round with the hiring manager on the day we agreed and scheduled. The recruiter sent an email to cancel it at the last minute – first red flag. So, we rescheduled the interview for the following week. At the new scheduled time, the hiring manager did not show up for the Zoom call for precisely 28 minutes – second red flag. I then emailed the recruiter and asked if anything needed to be corrected or canceled.

Finally, the hiring manager showed up and briefly apologized, stating his computer was broken. Really?

The interview felt rushed and very formal, with no excitement. He asked me to do a third round, which was a technical interview.

In the third interview, the interviewer did not introduce himself and jumped right into the questions. The coding interview, using Hackerrank and asking data structure and binary-tree questions, probably suits a graduate rather than someone who has been in the field for many years. Given this QA role, I was expecting questions related to test automation instead.

I received a rejection email within a week of the last interview. Overall, the experience was not great, and they should do a better job.

Tell me about yourself and other basic interview questions. The coding interview is more geared toward fresh graduates, focusing on topics such as data structures and binary trees.