Dropbox revoked its offer, WTF

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ramšŸ

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ramšŸ
Jun 13, 2019 101 Comments

I interviewed at Dropbox last month and got the offer from the recruiter.

Recruiter gave me the initial numbers and I was in the process of negotiation.

Today the recruiter called to tell me that my offer is being canceled because one of the interviewers submitted ā€œwrongā€ feedback for me.

Apparently that interviewer was trying submit feedback for multiple candidates, he accidentally submitted the other candidateā€™s feedback in my feedback form. That other candidate did well while I didnā€™t (in that interview).

My other interviews were good, but the above one was the deal breaker. The recruiter didnā€™t want to tell me which interviewer it was, but I am pretty sure who it was.

That interviewer was taking the coding interview and asked a boring bitwise question with some tweaks. I explained multiple approaches and implemented one of them correctly. But the interviewer was a moron, he had a hard time understanding any of them, he was asking stupid follow up questions which made it clear that he hadnā€™t understood a bit of what I had explained him. He asked me twice to find ā€œanother approachā€. So I had to suggest 3 different solutions and he didnā€™t even understand any one of them.

There was a junior guy who was shadowing him. Even he understood my solutions and tried to explain him, but still he couldnā€™t understand. I finally implemented the ā€œbestā€ approach and it ran fine for all the edge cases I could think of.

But still he wasnā€™t happy and asked me ā€œcan you think of a better way to do thisā€œ. I am like ā€œwhatā€™s wrong with the approaches I have suggested so far, what are you exactly trying to optimize for, because there will be some tradeoffsā€. Then he answers ā€œwell, you tell meā€.

I have taken a ton of interviews at FB. To me he felt like an inexperienced uncalibrated jerk interviewer. He was looking for the exact answer he might have seen on their internal wiki. He was pretty fixated on that and didnā€™t even want to spend time understanding alternate approaches.

Most of the other interviewers were much better but I could still sense the ā€œjerkā€ attitude in a couple of them. But they didnā€™t have any difficulty understanding me.

So WTF Dropbox ? You donā€™t know how to train and validate interviewers ? And you donā€™t care about candidate experience ? Would you really rescind an already out offer because of a juvenile interviewer ?

I have other offers, but wtf...

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  • Amazon
    Xode

    Go to company page Amazon

    Xode
    Who the fuck goes from FB to Dropbox ?
    Jun 13, 2019 22

  • This comment was deleted by original commenter.

  • Yeah Iā€™ll let him know. Just need his name or your name to track it down. But Iā€™m on it
    Jun 13, 2019 8
    • @ram my honest, balanced opinion here. He definitely knows that question very well but maybe he didn't understand your ideas, because those are not one of the recognized solutions. However, a general issue with our interview questions is that we have standardized solutions and our rubrics require those solutions only. The questions are designed or even 'researched' very well so most of the interviewers only accept those solutions. By this approach we do miss good candidates like you, because sometimes the interviewers can hint poorly and mislead the candidates. Usually I try to value positive signals and thought process of a candidate rather than if they get the best solution or not. But some interviews prefer following the book.
      Jun 13, 2019
    • Amazon
      kudobear

      Go to company page Amazon

      kudobear
      Pyv's answer is great but I think Dropbox as a company should revisit their hiring process. This kinda of mistake should be caught and flagged in the debrief, the point of debrief is to try best efforts to eliminate the bad/wrong feedbacks and help interviewer improve.
      Jun 13, 2019
  • You seen to care a lot for someone who doesnt care lol
    Jun 13, 2019 1
  • Submitting feedback for wrong people is a serious mistake. He seems damaging the company more than helping. I would send his name to the recruiter at least so HR can start collecting the feedback. I saw lots of jerk interviewers but this guy beats all the others. He should not be an interviewer in the entire industry. Imagine emotional damage the affected candidates are going through. Who would want to work with such an uncaring bastard?
    Jun 13, 2019 3
    • Facebook / Eng
      onlysmellz

      Go to company page Facebook Eng

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       onlysmellz
      Honest question: do you think feedback on interviewers matters in general at companies? Won't they just assume that interviewees will have bad (positive) feedback anyway in case they don't get offer (do get offer)?
      Jun 13, 2019
    • It will not do any when it is only one person. If there are others, it can be used to remove the guy out of the loop. I think that is what sane people and org will do. I also read a comment that they remove an interviewer whose feedback is bad. There was also a recruiter who mentioned he shares the feedback to the team. I also had an experience with Microsoft recruiter who said she can definitely deliver the feedback to the hiring manager when I mentioned about an interview where the interviewer was completely indifferent to me. It was not the interview of the day I got an offer from. It was a couple years before that interview hence I didnā€™t know his name but she said it helps and can definitely inform the team.
      Jun 13, 2019