Interviewed with Team A, now Team B wants to have a light interview loop?
For MSFT. Interviewed with team A last week. Crickets. No news Today team B reached out and said they are aware that I interviewed with team A and wanted to do a 'light loop'. I have a choice of interviewing over Skype or onsite. Has anyone encountered this before? What does a 'light loop' mean? What kind of questions will they ask? Also, should I pick the Skype or onsite option? Should I say Skype to keep it short (I assume they must have some good data from team A?) Or should I do onsite?
Sounds like you passed on technical but not on team fit so they want to see if you'd fit the other team. Pick on-site always when an option. Better chance at reading non verbal cues, no randomization from failure of comm tech, more personal contact with interviewer to make yourself likeable.
What if they do a full loop again? I don't want to risk failing the technical round... I'm applying for a technical position but it's not SDE although there is also simple leetcode questions. I don't wanna play Russian roulette that the onsite interviewer start testing me on cool and irrelevant shit and I can't pass because I'm not familiar with it. Ask me anything about my work no problem, but my experience is that people don't care and just ask whatever they like with no consideration of my work experience.
Welcome to modern interviews for technical roles. You can dislike the system. How do you think not participating will make you rank compared to candidates who do? And if your future co-workers behave in ways you believe you cannot stand by, is that the team for you anyway?
Always take in person if possible.
What's your reasoning behind this?
You are going to work with them, and vice versa. Don't you want to meet those folks in person?
I always find phone or Skype interviews more risky. You can't hear well, no chance of visual feedback, no whiteboard etc. People act differently (including you) on Skype vs in person. But to each his or her own.
I would suggest takinh a skype. Unless youre confident you can crack the onsite interview again. Usually if HR ends up arranging stuff, they might send out meeting req to the entire panel and you might end up having a full interview loop.