This was the typical Shopify interview. It started with a short screening with a recruiter, followed by a 1-hour coding test, another hour "life story" talk with a recruiter, then a 4-hour interview process on-site. This consisted of 2 peer programming sessions, 1 lunch, and 1 "technical deep dive" talk – all of these are posted and described quite accurately on their website.

One thing to note: the technical deep dive went a lot less deep than I thought. I was applying for an Android position and described an Android project I'd worked on, but the interviewer had no Android experience and so wasn't able to actually ask any questions to test my knowledge.

Feedback was pretty quick after the interview. I was given a phone call to indicate being rejected within 3 days of the interview.

All of that was fine, even though the interview process is very time-consuming, pretty close to a full workday. I knew lots of people applied, and they likely had a lot of qualified applicants. But the feedback I was given was very disappointing and left a very sour taste.

I don't expect companies to give feedback as to why a candidate is rejected. But if they offer feedback, it should be fair. The feedback I was given was that I didn't seem to be familiar with Android-specific development. I was quite shocked at that, seeing as I've spent over 5 years delivering professional Android applications, so I asked for specifics. The recruiter basically ended the conversation then and asked me to follow through by email, which I did. I felt like I was judged more on the nervousness of being interviewed than my actual skills as a developer.

The recruiter answered my email a week later and asked me to connect on the phone. I replied that if it was for additional feedback, I'd be quite happy to just get it summarized by email. By then, I was quite done with wasting any more time on the "process." She insisted on a phone conversation, in which she just repeated the exact same feedback, saying they believe in the process and their interviewers get lots of training, so it must be fair. When I asked if the other 3 interviewers had felt the same way – I was basically trying to figure out if I'd totally blown all the interviews or if it was just the Android-specific one that didn't go well – she said that I had made her very uncomfortable in the previous call where I asked for clarification, that she didn't want to provide me any more feedback, and then hung up on me.

I've never been treated so unprofessionally by a recruiter before. If you're going to give candidates feedback on why they were rejected, and the feedback is the complete opposite of their actual experiences and skills, you should be able to back it up and not feel "uncomfortable" by a candidate asking for clarification.

Why do you want to work here?