They've been sketchy since inception. I was in a very early batch, if not the first, in 2015.
Remember that the premise was that they were non-adversarial, anti-gotcha interviews, whiteboards, nit-picky algo implementations from memory, etc. They purported to do some qualitative analysis instead.
We schedule a session and I get the confirmation: "This is a chance for you to go into more depth, and show us something that you've built. This will not be a high-pressure interview." I get at email the day before our scheduled session that says, "Remember that we're going to talk to you about a project that you've worked on," as agreed.
The following day, just a few hours before our appointment, a founder emails me saying, "Just wanted to give you a quick heads up that rather than walking through a project today, you'll be doing some programming together with an engineer."
They duped me into an adversarial interview. That kinda thing grinds my gears, but I went along with it anyway. I get the response: "We really enjoyed it and thought you did great. We'd love to talk more with you and invite you to a second technical interview."
I opted out as this continued. They acknowledged that they were changing things around without telling people, but it was just so antithetical to the mission that it became disingenuous.
When you pair that attitude of disregard with fact that they're playing sociologists, it's a bad look.
Remember that the premise was that they were non-adversarial, anti-gotcha interviews, whiteboards, nit-picky algo implementations from memory, etc. They purported to do some qualitative analysis instead.
We schedule a session and I get the confirmation: "This is a chance for you to go into more depth, and show us something that you've built. This will not be a high-pressure interview." I get at email the day before our scheduled session that says, "Remember that we're going to talk to you about a project that you've worked on," as agreed.
The following day, just a few hours before our appointment, a founder emails me saying, "Just wanted to give you a quick heads up that rather than walking through a project today, you'll be doing some programming together with an engineer."
They duped me into an adversarial interview. That kinda thing grinds my gears, but I went along with it anyway. I get the response: "We really enjoyed it and thought you did great. We'd love to talk more with you and invite you to a second technical interview."
I opted out as this continued. They acknowledged that they were changing things around without telling people, but it was just so antithetical to the mission that it became disingenuous.
When you pair that attitude of disregard with fact that they're playing sociologists, it's a bad look.