I had applied for a Staff position. The interviews went well. A new recruiter (let's call her Recruiter 2; the initial recruiter who contacted me and scheduled the interviews was different, let's call him Recruiter 1) reached out the same day with positive feedback, but she said, "We are offering a Senior Software Engineer position." I asked for the reasoning, but she was vague in her answers.

For the next hour, she tried to get my current total compensation (TC). I gracefully ignored this and asked for the initial offer. She said she would get back to me.

The next day, Recruiter 1 contacted me and spent almost two hours trying to get my current TC. I didn't budge. He asked me to schedule a call with Recruiter 2.

In the call, she started giving me wide ranges for base salary, RSUs, and bonus, which took another 45 minutes. I asked her to come up with an initial offer and let me know.

For a week, there was no response. Upon following up via email and phone, she didn't bother to respond.

I called Recruiter 1 to understand what was happening. He said the feedback he saw from my call with Recruiter 2 was that she had mentioned, "Your expectations are too high, and you are just using the offer to negotiate with other companies."

I told him that was not what had happened. He said, "I'll hook you up with a new recruiter, and you can talk to him or her."

After two hours, Recruiter 1 called and said she was busy with other things and couldn't get back. She then started lowballing the numbers she herself had promised a week back. That was the end.

This is by far the worst recruiter experience in my entire career so far.

LeetCode Easy to Medium.

• Fibonacci
• 3 Sum