The interview process was engaging, if a bit lengthy. The recruiter was stellar and kept me in the loop the whole time. I met a diverse group of people, and everyone was really smart and cool.

The standard set of interviews included:

• Get to know you
• Pair coding
• Technical depth
• System design
• Management life story (since this was a leadership position)

The first 90% of the experience was a 9/10 (they even provided some non-standard interviewing benefits I won’t get into). However, the last 10% was awful.

Given my timing was awkward (mid-July… if you know, you know), I received a verbal offer but was waiting on paper. Then, the recruiter was laid off, and a new recruiter was assigned after two weeks of silence. This was followed by over two months of "we're waiting on placement" leading to a "decline," but we all know what that actually was.

It was a real bummer because I know this didn't represent all the great people I met along the way. Perhaps in another timeline things would have gone through, but a simple decline or rescind early on would have been much more preferable.

Design a bookkeeping system.