My interview for the senior software engineer position started with a timed coding interview for the first round. It was challenging, but not overly so. It consisted of four problems of varying difficulty plus a follow-up essay question. Each question had a separate time limit.

I was able to complete all of the problems correctly and the essay question mostly right. A couple of the problems took most of their respective time.

I moved on to the next round, which was a talk with the hiring manager. I usually do well on these types of interviews, so I wasn’t worried.

The hiring manager let me know that the discussion would take between 30 minutes and an hour. The discussion started with introductions, followed by each of us sharing our experience. The manager then had me discuss a project that I am most proud of from my past.

I proceeded to describe the project for several minutes and even mentioned an additional, related project before turning it back over to the manager, as I didn’t want to talk for too long. She seemed satisfied, so we moved on to the next topic.

She left some time for me to ask questions at the end and I asked three or four of them before we wrapped up.

We had finished in 30 minutes and the manager made a comment that she likes when she gets what she needs in an interview quickly, without taking the whole hour. I took that as a good sign. She mentioned that the recruiter would reach out with next steps.

I was shocked when the recruiter called me back a few days later to let me know that the manager decided to pass on me. The reason given was that I didn’t go into enough detail when discussing my past project.

If I didn’t go into enough detail during the interview, and we had plenty of time left, why didn’t the manager just ask me to go into more detail on the spot? And why make the comment about getting what you need quickly, which in retrospect sounds extremely snarky?

I told the recruiter this over the phone, and he agreed that it was a little odd, but didn’t offer to correct the situation in any way.

Needless to say, this particular manager left a very bad impression on me about Upstart and I will not be wasting my time interviewing with them ever again.

Describe a project you've worked on that you're proud of.