As a foreword, I'd like to thank the people I spoke with during the process: a Technical Sourcer, a Principal Technical Recruiter, and one of the software engineers. I enjoyed speaking with all of you and I appreciate the feedback, including the interviewer's remarks. This was extremely helpful.

First, I had a call with a Technical Sourcer. They briefly described the position details, answered my questions, and requested a CV. Then, I had a technical interview with one of the engineers. I discussed my experience and asked a couple of questions about the technologies and tasks. The third stage was a take-home task, and the fourth was a call with a hiring manager. I never reached the latter.

Let me explain the reason I marked my experience 'negative'. The main reason is the assessment of the take-home task. The quiz contained 9 tasks: the first 7 were theoretical questions with examples, and the last two were coding tasks. I enjoyed the quiz; it was quite interesting. However, I received 0 marks for 4 of the 7 theoretical questions. I was very curious how I could have a 0/3 mark for a question, especially as I didn't have any difficulties answering it.

The quiz header contained general rules for the answers: "Answer with bullet points; Single sentence per bullet point; Max 4 per question." As this was a separate requirement in the header, my thought was that they intentionally didn't want candidates to dive too deep. I followed the rules strictly. Additionally, all the questions had "list" or "name" requirements, but none asked to "describe the ways to mitigate." Thus, my answers were one sentence, not exceeding four sentences per question, and I only named the issues without touching on ways to correct them.

As a result, the reviewer commented on two of the questions that "explanation here is quite generic and does not propose a solution." This led to 0/3 and 0/2 marks. The other two questions for which I received 0 marks were codereview samples. There were flaws, so I admitted them and moved on. Strangely, the rest of the questions were marked excellent, and no one asked for more details.

At the same time, they mentioned they liked my coding and one of my answers on a database-related theoretical question. I contacted them, trying to reasonably explain myself and my vision of the situation. However, they didn't see any controversies in the task requirements or the reviewer's comments. The final answer was, "We have candidates who have passed this stage, and we know the assignment works well." None of my arguments worked.

I do not know the future, but right now, I am not considering re-applying later. In my opinion, the company is interested in candidates. At the same time, I consider all that happened to me as a kind of bureaucratic act or a lack of flexibility. Or perhaps I am not reasonable; it's up to you to decide.

I don't recall any specific questions before the quiz. There were generic questions about my experience at one of my previous companies.

I prefer not to spoil the quiz, however, as I don't think this is fair. My apologies.