I've been contacted by a recruiter I've worked with previously. He suggested Rokt as something interesting.

I didn't get a detailed overview of the interview process at the beginning. The first three rounds were coding, design, and a free-form tech lead talk – pretty much standard in the engineering world, nothing out of the ordinary.

Now, where's the catch?

The two next rounds were a fully automated CAP/IQ test and the "bar raiser" talk.

Generally, an IQ test is a giant red flag to me, indicating that the company fails to put together an interview process that tests real skills and employment scenarios. Though the real prize went to the bar raiser round.

It started (literally) with a "please explain (sic!) this period in your resume" question and the interviewer being mostly silent and 'u-huh'-ing along my talk during the whole round. No audible feedback, direction, or communication. No scenarios or situational questions (you know, S.T.A.R.?)

The outcome? "Great coding, great design, great IQ test results; wasn't open enough about past experience."

Combined with a "please find some nice failures from the past and be very humble" warning from the recruiter before the bar raiser round, I'm starting to think I've dodged a bullet.

Deep dive into caching: LRU cache implementation.

High-level design of a Rock-specific system involving a batch data processing pipeline and a fast customer-facing API.

"Please explain this period in your resume."