So recently, I’ve had a series of interviews. And of all the interviews, two companies stood out and really impressed me because of the awful experiences. The first company was Bolt. I saw they were hiring on Linkedin. But I didn’t know which position I should apply for, since their Front End Engineer and Senior Front End positions have the same job description on LinkedIn. To make it worse, the jd did not have any useful information, such as requirements (tech stack, yoe, etc) or what the job will be like. The jd is just a bunch of fancy words about how awesome Bolt is. When Bolt’s HR contacted me, I asked the question that what’s the requirements for Senior Front End Engineer since I am aiming to the Senior position. Instead of answering my question, she told me Bolt has a very high bar. So, based on my resume, I can only apply for the (regular) Front End engineer. I am a little annoyed, but I agreed to it and started to prepare for the interview anyway, because I am really interested in e-commerce companies. Meanwhile, the HR sent me two lists of team members, in case I get the offer and decide to choose which team I want join. So, I searched each of them on Linkedin. Frankly, I was not impressed at all. They are quite green. Most of them just came out college for less than 2 years. I started to have a bad feeling. Finally, the interview. I cannot lie about it. I am pissed off. They sent two young men, the combined experiences of which are less than mine. ( I searched their profiles on linkedin when they were doing the self-introduction.) And they are so green. To make it worse, there was no discussion. I cannot ask anything from them. When I submitted my answer and I was not sure about it, I asked for the correct answer and tried to discuss the answer. They just said no. I really doubted that whey they knew the answer! Of course, I get rejected. To be frank, the thing that pissed me off is NOT that I got rejected at all. I was inteviewing Hulu and Uber. I will not join Bolt anyway. The problem is that they are not professional at all. I felt I was wasting my time. They are full of bullshit. Recently, their CEO was whining about the Stripe and YC mob, and he sounded like a child. Oh, he also complains he cannot hire decent talented people. Go figure. Another bad experience is from Noom. The only reasons I interview Noom is that I get lots of ads from youtube. The ad keeps telling me someone lost 30 pounds after using Noom. But I am a guy who needs to get heavier (because a medical issue). So, they must have tons of money. (Or, they are just stupid). But anyway, I replied to the HR after she kept sending me recruiting emails for the last several weeks. So, I had a good conversation with her. This time, I apply for the senior position. And of course, the coding round. The interviewer is fresh from college with 2 yoe. And he wanted me to design a service/api. But he knows nothing about building an API. He kept giving me hints that I need to do this and I need to that. I told him your suggestions violate some of the basic best practices. He got pissed! Funny. The one that should get pissed is me. I am wasting my time. Honestly, the all of the interviews I had, the first ever round must be with a very senior person. And interviewers are at least will be my peer level. I cannot believe they sent some newbies to interview me. I am really offended. I don't want to find excuses for them. There are other startups which are very professional. They are just shitty. I am just wondering on which level they are shitty. The company is a mess? Or the recruiters just try to meet their KPI ( how many people you have interview for the last quarter or something)? #bolt #noom TC: 176k YOE: 4 (4 for front end, 6 in total, but the first 2 years do not count , because I was a backend developer)
When it comes to failing interviews, shitty, untrained interviewers are more often than not are the reason why. Particularly System Design. People who designed one system and call themselves architects. It's not an interview of designing a solution, it's a guessing game of what limited technologies they know and then hoping you have deep knowledge that matches what they know. Asana and Brex were like that in my recent interviews. Not a big deal. Wasn't going to join them anyway. But it's a matter of a smallish company trying to interview a lot of people and not spending the time to train people properly. The true architects and top developers are too busy to interview, so they shove it off to the unqualified.
“Ask for the correct answer”, what did you expect them to give you?
sadly, this is typical
Tbh OP sounds a bit pompous. YOE might be correlated to knowledge and experience but it’s not the be-all-end-all. It sounds like you looked down on your interviewers from the beginning and weren’t receptive to their inputs. Interviews aren’t all about technical knowledge. There’s a human component to it. Just be nice to people and they will reciprocate (most of the time).
This is not about being nice. This is about being serious.
It is the same everywhere, even L6 eng goes through first round interviews which are usually allotted randomly to the pool of Eng. folks 1 yr out of college take E6-E7 coding rounds at FB. So get down from your high horse and be a little humble, if you are feeling insulted by younger eng interviewing you, you would be insulted almost everywhere.
No, sir. Of all the 20+ companies I interviewed in Nov and Dec, they were the only 2 companies that send newbies.
My experience was the same at bolt, very in experienced interviewer who didn’t know the answer themselves. I’m convinced they are rejecting candidates because they feel threatened. I’m not sure this company will succeed without correcting this.
Don’t ever let recruiters down level you. If you think they’re doing that, find a different recruiter.