The interview process started warmly. The recruiter reached out, and was sharp and upbeat.

I proceeded through a technical screen, and then an onsite interview was scheduled.

I noticed the onsite invitation listed the title "Principal Infrastructure Engineer." I contacted the recruiter, and felt slightly concerned, as other job descriptions on the company's site with that title were operations-focused. The recruiter stated it was just a "placeholder."

I spoke with a few managers first. We discussed Java development, which felt like the behavioral portion of an interview.

Then the technical interviews began, and I was asked operations-related questions. There wasn't a single coding question.

(During one interview, the fire alarm went off. Coincidentally, the interviewer asked a question about Apache HTTP Server that I knew. The interviewer did not have the correct answer, so I suggested he look it up. He did and politely apologized.)

I politely reminded each interviewer that I was interviewing for a Software Development position.

The last interviewer was the culmination of this peculiar experience. This individual had interviewed at my current company several weeks prior but was not selected for a position (despite my several attempts to advocate for him). Professionally, I would have recused myself from the interview in the same situation. It placed me in a difficult position, as I couldn't complain without potentially jeopardizing his job.

Similar to the previous interviewers, he began asking me systems administration/operations questions.

At this point, I was quite frustrated, but I politely completed the remainder of the interview.

The recruiter's feedback, verbatim from the email, stated: "It seems like you should have been interviewing for a Software Engineering position, but we don't have anything like that available right now."

I was asked a number of questions about using Docker via the CLI.