I applied to a job online, and an interviewer reached out to me. After a couple of email exchanges, the recruiter set up an interview with the hiring manager, who was located in Europe. I had an interview really early in the morning to speak with the manager.

After our discussion, they told me that I had to take a coding test. This was not a phone screen but a HackerRank-style coding challenge with some mediocre tool design at Salesforce itself. For some reason, I was told that whatever day I decided to take the test, I had to finish it before 1:00 PM (my time).

The test was scheduled on a Saturday. I was sent a link to the test questions and the name of the person I should reach out to if I had any questions. I had no idea who that person was or where they were located. I did not want to wake someone up at 4:00 AM to ask why the test link wasn't working or to ask follow-up questions about the clarity of the questions, especially if I had never spoken to that person before.

On the day of the test, the link sent by Salesforce didn't work. I spent 20 minutes trying different browsers and clearing browser caches.

I wrote back to the recruiter and the hiring manager, stating that the link didn't work and that it was not a good experience for the candidate. To my surprise, the hiring manager wrote back, saying, "This happens from time to time, and I have to retake the test."

I had to write back to tell them it was not my fault that the link didn't work. If the hiring manager already knew that Salesforce's mediocre system didn't work, they should not have been using it or should have given the candidate a heads-up about it. Of course, I never heard back from either the hiring manager or the recruiter.

Imagine if my internet connection had broken. I highly doubt the hiring team would have considered my situation or given me another chance.

If you are asked for an online test, do ask if their system works. I wonder how a company that cares so little about its potential employees sells "customer relationship management" software.

I didn't get to see the interview question, but based on the sample input file attached to the mail, I think it was a simple graph question (topological sort).